


Mr. Baggins Builds His Dream House

by myrtlebroadbelt



Series: Under The Hill [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Bag End, F/M, Gen, Hobbit Culture, Hobbits, Humor, The Shire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-02 17:45:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2820797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrtlebroadbelt/pseuds/myrtlebroadbelt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bungo Baggins married Belladonna Took, he didn’t realize she came with two remarkable sisters. If three is a crowd, four is a mob. And a mob—even one made of hobbits—simply won’t do in one tiny smial. Factor in any future fauntlings, and he really can’t be blamed for coveting something more spacious. Too bad no one informed him that building it himself would be so… so… whatever <i>this</i> is!</p><p>What follows is an entirely respectable account of the building of Bag End, inspired by the 1948 classic Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In a Hole in the Ground

_“This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins.”_

It’s been a year. One whole year as Mr. and Mrs. Bungo Baggins.

He realizes this almost immediately after opening his eyes on this particular spring morning, burrowed beneath the quilts of his luxurious four-poster bed, sunlight creeping in through the small half-circle window to ease him out of sleep. His wife is snoring softly beside him, dark curls half-covering her face, loveliness in hobbit form. If you’d asked him one year ago what he’d hoped his life would be today, this would be it…

_“Mirabella, it’s my turn! What could possibly be taking you so long?”_

_“Stop shouting and give me a moment! My hair is a bird’s nest this morning.”_

_“You say that every morning!”_

…except he’d leave out the part about his wife’s two younger sisters moving into their modest smial one month after the wedding. And also the part about that aforementioned four-poster bed — yes, the luxurious one — taking up nearly his entire bedroom. He thinks he remembers the floor being red tile. Or is it green? There’s only about three square feet of it showing between the footboard and Belladonna’s vanity, so it’s easy for him to forget.

Ah, he was right the first time. It is red. He swings his feet over the edge of the bed and walks to the wardrobe. It’s a short walk. Barely a walk at all, in fact. More like a single step. Once he’s opened the door as far as it will reach before it bumps into the bed, it takes him three tries groping around amongst the tightly packed garments to finally find his patchwork dressing gown. And of course, as soon as he tugs it from its hanger, an entire row of Belladonna’s dresses collapses in a heap on the floor. “Sticklebats!”

Belladonna stirs in the bed behind him. “Were those mine?” she mumbles.

“They were,” Bungo sighs, crouching down to gather up the fallen frocks. “Can you really not part with any of them? I don’t think I’ve seen you wear half of them since the wedding.”

“Hmm, so a whole year then.”

Bungo turns quickly, his early-morning fluster briefly replaced by a broad smile. “You remembered.”

Belladonna is sitting up now, yawning herself awake and stretching her arms over her head. The ceilings are so low she comes _this_ close to brushing them with her fingertips. “Of course I did.” She smiles back at him sleepily, hair a mess. Bird’s nests seem to run in the family.

And what family would that be, you ask? Why, that would be the Tooks. They have a certain reputation in the Shire, and it’s definitely not for remembering important dates, at least not before their first cup of tea. Bungo, on the other hand, is a Baggins through and through. And the Baggins name comes with a certain built-in respectability. Sensibility. Responsibility. Predictability. Plenty of other _bilities_. Order and normality are his dearest friends.

Unfortunately he’s outnumbered in this household by the three _remarkable_ daughters of Gerontius Took. The word “remarkable” just got stuck to them at some point and now it’s practically Shire law to refer to them as such, no matter what your opinion of them. Whether the connotation is good or bad all depends on the speaker and their tone of voice. When the Old Took uses it, for example, the word becomes tinged with pride and unmatched affection. Coming from Mungo Baggins, Bungo’s staunchly conservative father, it drips with disdain and astonishment. Bungo himself is probably the only hobbit in the whole of the Shire whose use of the word falls somewhere between the two extremes.

The sisters’ shared remarkableness, good or bad, nonetheless caused them to fuse together at some point. They’re rarely apart, and when they are it’s not for very long. Even their names are connected, forming a perfect circle, or rather a particularly audacious flower crown: Belladonna, Donnamira, Mirabella. (Bungo would be lying if he said he didn’t occasionally stumble over his tongue when addressing them — for which they of course mock him relentlessly.) This inability for the sisters to extricate themselves from each other is of course what led to their current unsatisfactory living situation.

Bungo finishes replacing the dresses and ties his dressing gown securely over his nightshirt, and by the time he turns around again, Belladonna has fallen asleep sitting up, head drooping forward, face disguised by a curtain of hair. It happens every morning, and Bungo smiles as he makes the (very short) trek to the bathroom. At least _some_ things are pleasantly predictable around here.

If only he could have also predicted the shriek that would soon greet him upon opening the bathroom door without knocking first. Donnamira, having finally reclaimed the room from her younger sister, is not entirely decent, although thankfully all Bungo sees is a bit of extra calf. It’s still enough to make him blush to the tips of his ears. Many awkward apologies later, he’s back in his bedroom with Belladonna awake and laughing at him.

Bungo grumbles something under his breath and grabs his comb from the vanity before sitting on the edge of the bed and getting to work on the tufts above his toes, the same warm chestnut as the curls on his head. He’s barely begun the detangling process when Belladonna bumps him with her knee on her way to the wardrobe, causing a very unpleasant tug-of-war to be waged between the comb and his foot hair. He sucks in his breath, wincing.

“Did you hurt yourself, dear?” his wife asks distractedly, searching through the racks for her own dressing gown, the one with the red rose pattern.

“I hurt myself _every_ morning, in some fashion. I’ve begun to look forward to it,” Bungo retorts.

“You should try one of those boar-bristle brushes. They’re gentler. Gandalf uses one on his beard.”

“I am not interested in discussing Gandalf the Grey’s beard before I’ve had my breakfast, thank you very much.”

“My goodness, someone’s grumpy.”

Bungo sighs. “Realizing you’ve spent an entire year battling three Took lasses for the bathroom each morning tends to do that to a hobbit.”

“You did choose the place yourself,” Belladonna points out, as she’s wont to do whenever they have this conversation -- which is quite often, by the way.

Bungo has his usual answer at the ready: “Because you wanted to stay close to home, a request I was perfectly happy to fulfill. What I didn’t anticipate was that ‘right down the road from the Great Smials’ wasn’t nearly close enough to satisfy your sisters, or that the only available real estate in Tuckborough would be the size of a hatbox. And speaking of hatboxes, they’ve fallen on me twice this week. Do you really need all of them?”

Belladonna, who’s finally excavated her dressing gown and pulled it on, ponders this. “Well, I suppose I could just wear all my hats at once every day, and then I wouldn’t need the boxes to store them. Maybe I could even start a trend! Not a single head would be without at least three hats across the whole of Westfarthing.” And with that she bends down and kisses the tip of his round nose.

Bungo attempts to stifle a smile and fails. “If you think one kiss on the nose is going to fix this, you’re wrong.”

“Don’t be silly. Nose kisses fix everything,” Belladonna answers over her shoulder as she barges into the bathroom with no shame, despite it still being occupied by an audibly displeased Donnamira.

“Maybe you should start kissing the walls to see if they expand,” Bungo mutters, turning his attention back to his feet.

* * *

 

_Clang! Clang!_

…

_Clang!_

“Is it absolutely necessary that Togo join us for breakfast? Can’t you take him into the parlor?”

Although he is not a hobbit, Togo might as well be considered the fifth member of the family, or rather just another “space-taker-upper,” as Bungo refers to him — only in his head, of course. Togo is a brown thrush Mirabella discovered in their front garden last month, flightless due to an injured wing, his family nowhere to be found. Mirabella, possessing an enormous soft spot for all animals and especially birds, insisted they nurse the poor creature back to health. That’s how he ended up in the kitchen (no dining rooms in this hatbox) whiling away the hours cracking nuts on the bars of his cage — hence the clanging.

“Very well,” Mirabella sighs, getting up from the table and carrying Togo’s cage into the adjoining parlor. This solves absolutely nothing, of course. The house is so small that if Belladonna dropped a pin in the kitchen while Bungo slept in the master bedroom it would wake him up with a start. He may or may not know this from personal experience.

_Clang! Clang!_

He did some clanging of his own on the bathroom door earlier this morning, and after a few politely forceful requests to _please_ let him have his turn, Bungo was finally able to wash up in time for second breakfast. First breakfast doesn’t exist in this place unless they opt to rise at an offensively early hour. Forgoing one meal a day when you have six others to enjoy may not seem all that consequential, but Bungo’s tightened braces and rumbling stomach would beg to differ.

_Clang! Clang! Clang!_

Bungo doesn’t comment on the bird any longer, at least not vocally, although he can’t help stabbing his tomatoes a little more violently than usual.

“What’s on the schedule for today, dear?” Belladonna asks, most likely sensing his tension.

He perks up at that. “Going down to the market to talk to a butcher about a slogan. Some new ham product. Pre-sliced.”

Bungo Baggins is in advertising, in a way. He’s been coining sayings and proverbs for as long as he can remember, and a few years ago local merchants took notice and started paying him to come up with catchphrases they could use to advertise.

“How dreadful.”

Donnamira does not approve of Bungo’s line of work, and makes a point of saying so whenever he discusses it. He’s endured enough battles this morning just trying to make it to the breakfast table with his appearance and sanity intact, so he chooses to bite his tongue. That doesn’t stop her.

“I saw a poster in the market the other afternoon announcing that a hobbit was selling his hill up in Hobbiton.”

He expects something more after that, but she simply shakes her head in dismay and returns to her plate.

He can’t stop himself. “…And?”

Donnamira drops her fork and heaves a long-suffering sigh, lacing her fingers together on the table. “A poor, honest landowner plagued by hardship is forced to sell, and he stoops to advertising next to fliers for milliners and requests for post office workers. So crass.” She returns to her meal, obviously feeling sufficiently superior.

Bungo stares at his eldest sister-in-law as she delicately spears the potatoes on her plate. “Well, I apologize that such crass endeavors paid for this hill over your head. And the bandages for Togo’s broken wing. And the food on your plate.”

“That’s mostly _my_ money, dear,” Belladonna informs him from across the table, hiding her smirk behind her teacup.

It’s true, of course. While the Bagginses are well-off, it’s nothing compared to the Tooks’ wealth, and even though Bungo does contribute something from his work, his advertising profits don’t afford him much more than a few extra drinks at the inn each week. But he likes to pretend it makes a difference, if only to grant himself even the barest hint of control that he so desperately covets, and which is hard to come by in this household.

Bungo opens his mouth to reply to his wife, but he doesn’t get a chance to defend his pocketbook on this particular morning. Any further argument concerning money or advertising or birds clanging in their cages is averted thanks to a sudden insistent knocking on the front door.

Mirabella, who has abandoned the table in favor of accompanying Togo in the parlor, volunteers to answer it. Bungo silently hopes it’s not another Took relative ready to move in. He’s fairly certain Belladonna’s brothers can manage without her, but the alternative has settled itself in the back of his mind, coaxed out of hiding to torment him whenever a visitor comes calling.

Mirabella gasps with delight. “Uncle Gandalf!”

Sticklebats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been fascinated for a while now with the relationship between Bungo and Belladonna Baggins, particularly the fact that Bungo built Bag End for his wife. I started thinking about what that process would have been like, and since these are hobbits we're talking about, I imagine there would have been plenty of mishaps, much like in the classic Cary Grant comedy [Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DZXuLvEFjk). This story will mostly follow the plot of that film, with the necessary changes having been made.
> 
> This is my first foray into fanfiction, so any feedback is much appreciated. You can also find me on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com/).


	2. Something Tookish

_“Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she became Mrs. Bungo Baggins.”_

The first time Belladonna Took ever spoke to Bungo Baggins, she had a pipe in her mouth. He took little notice of it at first, having been enjoying one himself at the time. But once he pieced together that those curls were certainly too long, those features absolutely too delicate, that figure positively too… ahem… that she was indeed a woman, he coughed on his smoke.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked hoarsely.

“I said, would you like to dance?” Belladonna replied, smirking around the stem of her pipe.

Oh dear. He knew it was quite late, and perhaps he’d indulged in one ale too many, but he couldn’t possibly be in such a state as to be hallucinating a lovely raven-haired lass in a very becoming red and gold dress, puffing a man’s pipe and asking _him_ to dance. Could he?

He assessed his surroundings. Yes, this all looked correct. It was the annual Midsummer’s Eve party. He’d just come of age not one month before. Vigorous music wafted from the musicians’ stage, firecrackers popped in the distance — he’d purposely situated himself as far away from them as possible — and the field was teeming with dancers. There was his father over at one of the tables, engaged in a very serious-looking discussion with Uncle Largo. And of course over on the other side of the crowd was the Old Took himself, organizer of the festivities, seated in his favorite oak and velvet chair, surrounded by a sizable portion of his twelve children.

The Took’s children had black hair across the board, an unusual color for hobbits. Unusual enough for Bungo to realize that the lass who’d just asked him to dance was not just _any_ lass in an extremely becoming red and gold dress. She was a _remarkable_ one. But which remarkable one was she?

“I’m Belladonna, if you care to know,” she commented then as if reading his mind. “I suppose it was rather impolite of me to start a conversation without introducing myself. Politeness isn’t really my area, I’m afraid.”

It was then that Bungo realized just how ridiculous he must have looked, standing silently gaping at Belladonna for who knows how long. And now he was making it worse by not answering. She was looking at him expectantly now. He contemplated running away, but found himself rather cornered between her and the trunk of the party tree. And anyway, what kind of gentlehobbit runs away when approached by a friendly lass in a fetching red and gold dress? Very fetching indeed. For the love of green goodness, Baggins, pull it together and _talk_ to her!

“I do care… to know your name, that is. I… Bungo… eh, Baggins.” Oh dear.

Belladonna smiled that secretive smile of hers that he would find alternately attractive and irritating in the years to come. “Yes, I know. Now, have you come to a decision about that dance?”

That’s how he found himself in the middle of the crowd, sweaty curls plastered to his forehead, participating in what was without question the most ridiculous dance he’d ever allowed his body to perform, all the while staring across the way at the loveliest, most peculiar individual he’d ever encountered. The one time he chose to look away, he caught his father staring at him in wide-eyed dismay. As Belladonna’s arm looped through his for yet another dizzying twirl, it suddenly hit him just how much respectability he was about to lose, indeed how much he was already losing. And perhaps the least respectable thing about it all was just how much he didn’t care.

They courted for almost a year. At first, Belladonna would show up unannounced at the Bagginses’ front door, flushed and disheveled after the long trek from the Great Smials to Hobbiton, yet smiling brightly and asking after Bungo. The third time she did this, Bungo politely pointed out that it would make much more sense for them to meet halfway. So they chose a day and time each week and found each other outside “their” hobbit hole, the one with a burnt orange door. Belladonna chose it, Bungo suspected because she delighted in the disapproving glance they would regularly receive from its resident granny.

Usually they would just wander with no destination, occasionally stopping in at the market for a bite of strawberries with cream. Belladonna did most of the talking, but Bungo was perfectly content to listen. Once she dragged him unwittingly onto Farmer Toadfoot’s property, where they spent a blissful twenty minutes playing hide and seek between the wheat stalks before running like jackrabbits from the business end of a hoe. Bungo laughed heartily when they were a safe distance away, but he made Belladonna promise never to get him into that sort of trouble again. That was the routine for them: trouble, laughter, warning, more laughter, repeat.

Mungo Baggins was less than pleased, and that’s putting it mildly. His wife nodded along to his complaints, but the corners of her lips betrayed her private approval. The reason for such a reaction should be obvious enough from Belladonna and Bungo’s first encounter. But her fondness for pipe-weed and abstinence from social niceties were just the start of the problem. Belladonna’s family had a definite reputation in the Shire, and it wasn’t a good one.

Long story short, the Tooks were fond of adventures. “Adventure” was of course a dreadful profanity in the language of Bagginses, and anyone who involved themselves in such nasty business must be very shady indeed. Stories of the Tooks’ journeys into the outside world were known from Buckland to Michel Delving, particularly the one about Hildifons Took, one of Belladonna’s older brothers, who left the Shire and never returned. Some say he died, some that he fell in love with an elf maid and set about infusing even more (alleged) fairy-blood into the Took line.

Credit for such tomfoolery belonged to a certain wandering wizard with a gnarled staff and a long grey beard brushed by boar bristles. He visited the Shire often, usually staying at the Great Smials, the Tooks’ ancestral residence. The hobbits put up with him for his magnificent fireworks — much like they put up with the Old Took for his superb parties just as much as, if not more than, because of his rank as Thain — but they were sure to keep one eye on their fauntlings at all times, lest he put the wrong ideas into their heads before sweeping them away on some unsavory mission beyond their borders. Most Shirefolk knew this wizard as Gandalf the Grey, but to the Took children he was always “Uncle.” Uncle Gandalf was rumored to have orchestrated several adventures over the years for the young Tooks, including Belladonna.

Bungo knew very little of Belladonna’s adventures, other than what he could glean from her and Gandalf’s vague conversations and knowing glances whenever he visited, and he was rarely bold enough to ask questions or broach the topic on his own. When he did, she would only tell him, “One day,” with that dratted smile of hers, and that was that.

Whether Belladonna’s distaste for convention was due to her time away from the Shire or vice versa, no one was really sure. The only thing they _were_ sure of was that she could do with a little added respectability.

Mungo’s hereditary good sense told him he shouldn’t allow such respectability to be added in the form of his oldest son. But he was faced with a rather frustrating dilemma, for as unrespectable as the Tooks were, they were just as rich. As mentioned before, Belladonna’s father was Thain of the Shire, and their home was sprawling, although Mungo turned up his nose at the feral state of their gardens. While the Bagginses had decent wealth of their own, Mungo would certainly never pass up the opportunity for one of his own to marry into more of it. And so he gave his grudging approval of the match.

Despite the widespread fear that Belladonna would kidnap Bungo and drag him away from the Shire and into danger, never to return, no such thing happened. Although his time with Belladonna had certainly excited him and opened his mind to allow for a fleet of new and curious ideas, Bungo was still a Baggins at heart. He relished the comfort of his armchair and understood the power of a little peace and quiet — something very underrated in the Took household. Belladonna herself was more than enough adventure for him, and he didn’t have to travel farther than he was comfortable to find it; she was right there by his side.

Still, Bungo wondered if Belladonna’s spirit could ever really be contained in one humble smial — or even in the whole of the Shire, if he was being honest with himself. He wasn’t quite sure which was worse — the idea that Belladonna would one day leave him in further pursuit of the wide world beyond her doorstep, or that her commitment to _him_ was the only thing that held her back from doing so.

And yet his wife seemed happy, even in their hatbox. More specifically, she seemed happy _with Bungo_.

“You are a good thing, Bungo Baggins,” she would often tell him, in their bed before falling asleep or while sitting on the garden bench having a smoke after supper.

He could never quite figure out a way to tell her what an even better thing she was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to use this chapter to get some background out about how I see Belladonna and Bungo's relationship developing. Next chapter gets back to the main plot, and the arrival of Gandalf. 
> 
> I put together a playlist for this fic, and for these two in general, over on [8tracks](http://8tracks.com/myrtlebroadbelt/to-build-a-home). 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Good Morning

_“What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!” said Gandalf. “Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won’t be good till I move off.”_

“Uncle Gandalf!” That’s Donnamira this time, getting up from the breakfast table and hurrying through the parlor to greet their guest at the door. The booming laugh that follows as Gandalf stoops to enter makes Bungo’s bacon suddenly taste bad on his fork. He decides this is as good a time as any to head into market for his meeting. As he stands to clean up, he catches Belladonna laughing at him from behind her napkin.

“What, may I ask, is so funny?” Bungo wonders aloud, despite already having a pretty good idea.

“Oh, nothing. Just your Gandalf furrow.”

“My _what_?”

“Your Gandalf furrow. The little crease you get between your eyebrows whenever he’s around.” Belladonna motions to her own brow. “It happens so often I thought I had better give it a name.”

“My… I beg your pardon!” Bungo reaches up, as if to prove that no such crease exists, only to feel a very fuzzy, very prominent wrinkle precisely where Belladonna has described. He huffs and wills it to disappear, inadvertently crossing his eyes in the process. Of course that only makes Belladonna laugh even harder as she rises from her chair and leans over to place her lips in that exact spot.

It would seem that a furrow kiss is just as effective as a nose kiss in calming Bungo’s temper. In fact, he almost forgets Gandalf has even arrived.

“Well, if it isn’t the Shire’s most famous couple!”

Almost.

“Gandalf, what a nice surprise!” That’s Belladonna now, turning to where the wizard stands hunched in the kitchen doorway… and just when exactly did she drop the “Uncle”? Bungo chalks it up to a slip of the tongue but nevertheless stores it away in his mental repository of overthinking. “Will you be staying long? I’m sorry to say we have very little space for a wizard if you’re in need of a room for the night.”

Bungo is torn between taking offense at the suggestion that his house is inadequate -- which of course it is, but that isn’t the point -- and feeling relief that this visit won’t last overnight.

“Of course not, I wouldn’t dream of putting you out. Your father is expecting me at any moment. I merely wanted to stop in and say good morning. Good morning, Bungo.” Gandalf nods in his direction.

“Yes, good morning. Lovely to see you,” Bungo replies, handing the old man a cup of tea. How did that happen? When did he pour that? He downright _curses_ his politeness sometimes.

Gandalf gives his thanks and throws a wink in for good measure. “I also wanted to discuss that Foxburr deal you wrote me about,” he adds, looking back to Belladonna and brandishing a sheet of parchment.

“Oh… thank you,” she replies with a quite uncharacteristic hesitancy. Foxburr? Deal? Writing to Gandalf? Perhaps Bungo’s trip to the market can wait a few extra minutes.

Belladonna ushers Gandalf into the parlor, where she sits in Bungo’s armchair — most likely to prevent Gandalf from sitting in it, bless his wife — while the wizard crouches into the rickety wooden chair opposite her. The girls have run off to who knows where. Bungo’s just happy to have them out of the house and by extension out of his hair as he creeps into the room and strains to hear the ensuing conversation over Togo’s racket.

_Clang! Clang! Clang!_

For goodness sake, how many nuts can one dratted bird crack before elevenses?

“Of course you could easily save that amount by not tearing out the parlor wall,” he hears Gandalf saying.

“Hmm? Who’s tearing out walls? What is this about? Who’s Foxburr?” Bungo tries and fails to disguise his panic as casual curiosity as he steps forward and hovers between them, unable to sit down because of course the room won’t accommodate more than two chairs.

“Bunny Foxburr, dear,” Belladonna tells him, and it’s clear from the way she refuses to hold his gaze that this conversation was meant to take place when Bungo was out of earshot. “You remember him, don’t you? That clever young interior decorator we met at Isembard’s birthday last month?”

“You mean that fellow with the breeches cut to above his knees?” Bungo hears Gandalf snort into his tea and pretends not to hear it. “What about him?”

“Well, you know that we’ve been talking about how this place could do with a few changes. Anyway, Bunny came calling shortly after the party, and he had some simply wonderful ideas. But of course I didn’t want to bother you with any of it until I was sure it was a wise investment, so I sent the plans over to Gandalf to get his opinion.” _Because you already knew what my opinion would be_ , Bungo mentally finishes for her.

“What plans?” is all Bungo is able to say. He needs his pipe, and he needs it now.

“Have a look for yourself,” Belladonna replies, reaching over to pluck the parchment from Gandalf’s hand. “This is how he sees the parlor. Stunning, isn’t it?”

Bungo examines the sheet before him. How could this possibly depict their parlor? Is this even a room? It looks more like random squiggles. “Is this a coat rack?” he inquires, pointing to one corner.

“No, of course not, that’s a fountain,” Belladonna chuckles.

“A _fountain_?” Bungo nearly shouts. “What is a fountain doing in our parlor? And where are the chairs? All I see are pillows.”

“It’s very Elven. Bunny based his designs on Rivendell.”

“Does he know we live in the Shire?”

“Oh, stop it. I think it would suit us very nicely. Remember to keep an open mind, darling.”

“And an open pocketbook as well, I’m sure. How much is this going to cost?”

Belladonna doesn’t answer at first. She looks up at him nervously, and he’s almost certain she’s contemplating leaping to her feet and kissing his nose a hundred times to distract him. She decides against it and finally tells him, “Flip it over.”

Bungo turns to the other side of the parchment. He squints to see the figure scribbled there, and the noise he makes when it finally comes into focus is somewhere between a wheeze and a squeak. “This is a year's rent!”

“That’s if we tear down a wall. And I quite agree with Gandalf that…”

“Oh, Gandalf! I’ve got plenty to say to him.” Politeness has wandered out the back door at some point in this conversation, it would seem. “Some wizard you are! A defenseless hobbit not yet out of her tweens who’s gone her entire life never having to consider the value of a coin asks for your wisdom, and the next minute you’ve got her tearing out walls and installing fountains!”

Gandalf has put aside his teacup and begun puffing away at his pipe now, looking rather amused by the proceedings. “Quite the contrary. I’ve already stated I’m opposed to tearing out the wall, as is Belladonna. I was trying to do you a favor by pointing out how you could easily cut the cost in half.”

“I can cut the cost to nothing by choosing to go on living in a _hobbit_ hole, with _hobbit_ furniture and _hobbit_ fountains. And by that I of course mean nonexistent ones.”

“Might I remind you that this is mostly _my_ money we’re dealing with here,” Belladonna points out for the second time this morning.

“It may be your money, but I have to live in what you do with it. And certainly no Baggins ever has or ever will be comfortable living in Rivendell, or for that matter any spaces inspired by it. Not to mention the fact that if we do _anything_ with this hole, it should involve making it three or four times bigger.” Bungo of course doesn’t reveal his final reason for objecting: Gandalf’s involvement.

At this point Belladonna sighs very dramatically -- so dramatically, in fact, that Bungo begins to suspect this new parlor isn’t quite as important to her as she first let on. She has a habit of riling Bungo up for her own amusement, something he only realizes is happening after it’s already too late. He once misplaced his tobacco-jar and spent the better part of a morning searching for it. Belladonna, upon discovering it, hid it from him for five extra minutes before finally handing it over, hardly able to speak through her laughter. She told him he looked “cute” when he was flustered. He responded with a scowl. “Adorable!” she declared.

“Very well,” she says now. “I suppose you’re right. I’ll let Bunny know the next time I see him.” She approaches Bungo and gently adjusts his cravat, her mouth curling up ever so slightly on one side. “But maybe we can just get the fountain.” She never can resist torturing him a little more.

Gandalf is standing up with a laugh. “Now that we have that all sorted out, I’ll be on my way. Sorry to have caused any trouble, although you two never fail to set things right in the end.” He grabs his hat and staff from against the wall where he left them and shuffles hunchbacked to the door. Any hobbit hole by definition would be too small for him; this one is infinitely worse.

Belladonna follows to send him off. “Send my love to the Great Smials,” she tells him as he uprights himself outside the door, his back cracking. (Bungo most certainly does not get any enjoyment whatsoever out of that little detail. How could you even suggest such a thing?) “And tell Isengar to enjoy his golfing trip.”

“As you wish, my dear.” Gandalf gives her a knowing wink. “Goodbye, Bungo!”

“Yes, goodbye. Thank you for coming.” It would seem his old friend politeness has unexpectedly returned.

“Golfing?” he asks Belladonna after she’s closed the door.

“It’s just something we say,” she shrugs.

“About what?”

“One day,” she replies, sashaying past and shooting him The Smile. If his Gandalf-provoked eyebrow crease deserves a nickname, surely that secretive smirk of hers deserves to be capitalized.

“If ‘one day’ could come before I’m old and grey, that would be lovely,” Bungo scoffs, donning his favorite green jacket from the rack by the door -- the garments are piled three or four to a hook because… well, you know why at this point. “I’m off to the market. Expect me for elevenses, as long as this Danderfluff fellow doesn’t talk my ear off.”

Bungo opens the door and immediately regrets it. Apparently thirty seconds is not enough time for a wizard to board his horse-drawn cart and ride away out of sight and mind. He attempts to retreat into the house without being spotted.

“Bungo, are you headed somewhere? Hop on, my dear fellow!”

Sticklebats.

* * *

 

There’s a large blanket covering whatever contraband objects are undoubtedly hidden in the back of Gandalf’s cart. Bungo eyes it suspiciously as they roll through the narrow lanes of Tuckborough. He thinks he can see the gleam of metal peeking out from beneath one poorly arranged corner of the fabric. Probably not fireworks, since Bungo’s mental calendar tells him the next party in these parts isn’t for a week — the birthday of one of his Grubb cousins. Perhaps they’re golf clubs, or whatever that would be a euphemism for in the language of Tooks. Probably very inappropriate business for Belladonna’s 19-year-old brother Isengar, no matter what it is.

Bungo is just about to question Gandalf about this, but the old man speaks first, mumbling around the stem of his pipe: “Well then, how’s married life, Bungo? It’s been a whole year now, hasn’t it?”

If there’s one individual Bungo would prefer _not_ to remember his anniversary, it’s Gandalf the Grey. “To the day,” he replies shortly. The market isn’t too far ahead; perhaps they’ll reach it before he has to participate in any more small talk.

“And how are those youngsters coming along?”

Bungo turns his head so quickly he feels something pull in his neck. “I beg your pardon? I hardly think that’s any of your business.”

“I was referring to your sisters-in-law, Bungo,” Gandalf corrects with a smirk.

“Oh.” Bungo wills the cart to move faster than the blush currently creeping to the surface of his cheeks.

“Feel free to enlighten me about any other youngsters you have in the works, however. No doubt Old Took expects you to beat his record. Time to get cracking.”

If Bungo had a pipe he would be choking on the smoke, but as it is he’s without one, so he makes do with the mere air he’s breathing. Of course Gandalf is laughing. When is Gandalf _not_ laughing at him?

When he’s collected his wits, he manages this response: “Let’s make a deal. If you would be so kind as to stop this particular conversation in its tracks, I promise not to ask you what scandalous items are hiding under that blanket back there.”

Gandalf laughs some more at that. “Very well. I’d say that’s fair.”

Bungo’s mind wanders as they pass a pair of golden-haired fauntlings playing in their front garden while their young mother pins laundry to the line. Obviously he and Belladonna _will_ have children at some point. Preferably once he can coax the aforementioned sisters-in-law into returning to the Great Smials  — or anywhere that’s not _his_ house, really. And also once they’ve found a house spacious enough to comfortably accommodate the gentle pitter-patter of tiny hobbit feet.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on that wonderful idea, and he’s rather thankful for that actually, since it means they’ve finally reached the market. It takes all of his Baggins caution to keep himself from leaping off the cart before it comes to a complete stop.

“Thank you very much for the ride. Good morning!” he declares and immediately hurries away. He doesn’t even have to hear Gandalf’s reply to know it’s cloaked in yet another insufferable laugh.

* * *

 

Olo Danderfluff is a middle-aged and very jolly hobbit whose belly is just as round, if not rounder, than the _O_ ’s in his first name. He shows off his meat products like a proud parent. He’s unfortunately rather long-winded in his explanations, and Bungo agrees to buy a whole chicken and three types of sausages just to move things along. His stomach is growling, as it usually does around this time, and he wants to get home for elevenses. Yes, he did just eat second breakfast less than an hour ago, thank you for noticing. But when there isn’t a first breakfast preceding it, a hobbit tends to get peckish.

At last Olo unveils his most cherished product, a mouth-watering ham that comes pre-sliced. “To save time,” he points out. _If only he could invent something that would get Took lasses out of the bathroom more quickly_ , Bungo ponders to himself with a private smirk.

“I call it -- oh, you’re sure to love this, Mr. Bungo.” Olo struggles to stifle a snort. “It’s called Hamfast.”

He must expect nothing less than a kiss and a marriage proposal, because even after Bungo chuckles and nods his head in approval, Olo appears disappointed and insists on explaining the name further. “It’s a ham… but fast. Hamfast.”

“Yes, I understand perfectly. Very clever.” Bungo dials up the vigor of his nodding to emphasize just how much he really does like it.

Olo still doesn’t seem satisfied, but he continues nevertheless. “Anyway, Mr. Bungo, I was hoping, what with how good you are at putting words together, that you might come up with something to make folks want to buy it. Something snappy.”

“I’d be happy to, Olo. Just give me a little time to think on it. These things don’t happen overnight, you know. And I’d like to buy one to take home and test out, of course.”

Olo looks uncertain, holding the ham away from Bungo possessively as he considers his suggestion. “Well, I suppose I can give you this one. The thing is, Mr. Bungo, I’m not ready to sell it yet until I have a good slogan that’s sure to make people buy it.” He lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Competition and everything. Don’t want the other butchers getting ideas.”

“Oh, I see,” Bungo plays along, tapping his nose in understanding. It takes five more minutes of reassuring Olo that he won’t share the ham with a soul beyond his nearest and dearest before the rotund hobbit finally sets him free. He wastes no time scurrying away from the booth before he can get caught up in another meaty conversation.

Before heading home, a heaping basket of various meats in one hand and an anniversary bouquet of cornflowers for Belladonna in the other, the promise of seed cakes and coffee on his mind, Bungo stops at the town bulletin board. He wants to make sure his advertisement for Mr. Millstone’s haircutting services is still being displayed prominently enough for his liking. He’s quite proud of the slogan he came up with: “He trims hair… _and_ prices!”

Ah yes, there it is, front and center. He gives it a quick straightening and begins to leave, but something catches his eye. It’s a real estate notice, by the looks of it the same one that scandalized Donnamira so terribly at the breakfast table.

_COME TO PEACEFUL HOBBITON! Spacious hill for sale. North side of the Water. Partially excavated. Lush grass. Fertile soil. Shady oak tree. Walking distance from the market. Contact Posco Overhill of Hobbiton for more details._

Peaceful and spacious — the exact two qualities Bungo most desires in a home at the moment. And it’s in Hobbiton, where the Bagginses are meant to be. Suddenly it hits him harder than the frying pan that fell off the kitchen shelf and onto his head the other day: Why tear out walls in a hatbox, when for just a little more expense you could buy a hill in Hobbiton, build into it, and have the kind of dream house you’ve always wanted? He promptly rips the notice off the board, folds it neatly, and stuffs it in his jacket pocket.

“Good morning, Mr. Bungo,” says a passing acquaintance carrying a substantial tray of cabbages.

“Yes, it is!” Bungo practically sings in response. A very good morning indeed.


	4. The Hill

_“The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind…”_

The afternoon that Belladonna and Bungo travel to Hobbiton to see The Hill, they rent a pony-drawn cart. Belladonna of course suggests that Gandalf drive them, as he’s still staying nearby. Bungo concocts some excuse about the old man mentioning he’d be busy at the time they have planned. He really isn’t a fan of lying, especially to his wife, but no meddling wizards will be involved in the creation of _his_ dream house, thank you very much.

The same goes for maddening sisters-in-law. Bungo insists that the cart will only hold two, and that Donnamira and Mirabella will be perfectly fine on their own for a few hours with Togo and his endless nut-cracking to keep them company. After plenty of complaining and much cooing over the shaggy brown and white pony waiting patiently in the lane outside, they reluctantly comply.

Posco Overhill’s advertisement was enough to convince Bungo that The Hill was the answer to all their cramped, overcrowded, claustrophobic problems, but Belladonna was a little tougher. In the end it was the opportunity to get out of Tuckborough and across The Water that convinced her. Fresh air and the clip-clop of pony hooves are for Belladonna what a corsage or a silver hair pin might be to other hobbit wives. No adventure is too small for a Took.

And so one sunny spring afternoon just after luncheon, the Bagginses make their way northward. For Bungo, he’s returning home. He’s been to visit his family more than once in the past year, but he certainly doesn’t see them as often as he does the Tooks. That’s definitely something he wouldn’t mind changing. The prospect of living in Hobbiton again, in his own luxurious hobbit-hole with his beloved wife and their inevitable brood, perhaps with his sisters-in-law quarantined in some sound-proof section of the house, makes his heart sing.

With each new landmark, it sings even louder. They cross the East Road and he clucks for the pony to speed up. As they pass through Bywater, the pool glistening in the sunlight on their right, he can barely contain a cheer. Once the Bywater Road enters Hobbiton, it takes everything he has not to simply jump off the cart and run the rest of the way to The Hill, leaping fences and cutting through gardens along the way.

It isn’t that Hobbiton is all that different from Tuckborough. There is of course a market and an inn and rows of houses built into hills and orchards and livestock and hobbits upon hobbits upon hobbits milling about. But there’s one thing Tuckborough doesn’t have that Hobbiton does — memories.

Over there is where he got so tangled up in his maypole ribbon as a fauntling that he had to be cut free with sewing scissors. He smoked his first pipe standing next to his father right over there outside the Green Dragon. And of course he met Belladonna beneath the party tree that balmy Midsummer’s Eve nearly two years ago. This nostalgia makes the grass look greener, the air smell cleaner, the birds sound more cheerful.

He’s so caught up in his merry homecoming that he almost doesn’t notice this is the second time they’ve passed that specific cow behind that specific fence with those specific sunflowers growing between the posts.

“That’s odd,” Bungo muses. “Must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

He tries again, convinced he’s going in the right direction this time, but when the great oak tree atop The Hill starts to look farther away instead of closer, and they pass that same dratted cow again, it would seem he was wrong.

He stops the cart and looks around, attempting to map out the correct path. Honestly, getting lost _twice_ in the town where he grew up? How could this possibly happen? Granted, his family lived farther south than this, and he’s never been quite as familiar with the layout up here. Still, this is moderately embarrassing. The cow appears to be chewing her cud in a particularly judgmental manner.

“Probably best to ask for directions, dear,” Belladonna suggests, twirling a purloined sunflower in her hand.

Oh, and admit to his former (and hopefully future) neighbors that he can’t find his way around his place of birth? No, that won’t do.

He doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter, however, because just as he’s about to tell the pony to move, he hears a chipper voice to his right.

“Well, if it isn’t Bungo Baggins!” That would be Milo Proudfoot, owner of the aforementioned judgmental cow. He’s currently making his way toward the fence with an armful of freshly dug-up carrots. “And the missus, of course,” he adds, tipping his straw hat politely. “What brings you this far north of The Water?”

“Hello, Milo. Well, we… eh, we’re… you see…” Bungo is still weighing the shame of asking for directions against the embarrassment of passing Milo and his cow for a _third_ time. He doesn’t have to think on it for very long, however, because Belladonna interrupts his babbling.

“We seem to have gotten ourselves a bit turned around.”

“Ah, I see. Forgotten the place already, have you, Bungo?” Milo teases.

“So it would seem,” Bungo answers through gritted teeth.

“Well then, where are you headed? I’m sure I can point you in the right direction.”

Belladonna continues holding the reins — of the conversation, that is; Bungo’s still got the ones attached to the pony. “We’re on our way up to The Hill to have a look around. It’s for sale, you know.”

“Yes, I do know.” Milo’s jolly countenance falls away for a moment as he narrows his eyes. “So I venture you haven’t seen it yet?”

“Not yet. That’s why we’re here.”

Milo hesitates. “And you’re thinking of buying?”

“Well, we certainly won’t know until we see it, will we?”

Milo pauses for a few seconds, as if he’s deciding how to respond. At long last his face breaks into a pleasant smile and he proceeds to rattle off a series of “turn lefts” and “turn rights,” all the while waving an especially enormous carrot in the general direction of The Hill.

Bungo and Belladonna thank him and get on their way, but when Bungo glances back out of curiosity, he sees that same narrow-eyed expression on Milo’s face as he watches them go. Could he really be so upset about the prospect of them moving to Hobbiton? He seemed so happy to see them at first. Well, best not to think about it too much. They’ve got a hill to see. A lush, green, peaceful hill.

* * *

 

An overgrown, half-dying, looks-like-it-was-excavated-with-a-teaspoon hill.

If Bungo were to accuse Posco Overhill of false advertising, it would be the understatement of the Third Age. The first thing they notice is the difference in terrain. If there had ever been a useable road in front of The Hill, it’s now nonexistent, the grass having grown over it in ugly patches sprinkled here and there with weeds. The cart bumps and shakes as they approach.

The Hill itself is at least three stages past disaster. The grass is even more unkempt and weed-infested than on the road, and half of it is browning. Bungo can make out what looks like a rotting wooden door frame beneath curtains of depressed foliage. It gives the impression of a gaping mouth, as if The Hill itself is shocked at its own state.

“Finally!” a disembodied voice exclaims from somewhere next to them. Belladonna and Bungo jump in unison, both having been under the impression that the general area was abandoned, because honestly, who would come up here?

They turn to see a middle-aged hobbit rising from a garden bench to the right of the door, appearing to have materialized from the side of The Hill itself. Bungo wonders if he chose a green jacket and waistcoat specifically to camouflage himself. It certainly worked.

“Thought no one would ever show up!” the hobbit declares, strolling down the ghosts of what might have once been stone steps. “I’ve been sitting out here morning ‘til night for a week hoping someone would stop by. There are only so many books to keep a fellow interested. Posco Overhill, at your service.”

Bungo considers making a hasty escape, but he’s prevented by his good manners and the prospect of the cart toppling over on the uneven terrain. “Bungo Baggins,” he finally replies, deciding to be courteous and step out of the cart. Belladonna jumps down on the other side before he even has a chance to lend her his hand. “And this is my wife Belladonna. We, uh, saw your ad. In Tuckborough.”

“A Baggins in Tuckborough!” Posco exclaims, clicking his tongue in playful disapproval. “That won’t do at all. Bagginses belong in Hobbiton.”

“Well, we thought we’d have a look at something different. Just _looking_ , of course.”

“Yes, of course. You’re unlikely to see much you don’t like, though. She’s quite a beauty.”

_And you’re quite a liar_ , Bungo adds in his head. “Yes, very charming,” he says out loud. _Apparently so am I._

Posco is still talking. “You’ll have just about everything you could ever want up here. Plenty of space once you remodel it. Beautiful view of Hobbiton through your window. Market only a short walk away. Same goes for the inn.” With that he winks at Bungo, who forces a smile. “You two have any little ones?”

It’s a simple question. Yes or no. One monosyllabic word will suffice. So Bungo cannot fathom for the love of all that is green why his answer comes out as a shaky jumble of “wells” and “you sees,” punctuated by a nervous clearing of his throat.

He’s soothed by Belladonna’s warm hand on his arm as she cuts in with “Not yet, Mr. Overhill. But eventually, of course.”

Posco doesn’t seem fazed by Bungo’s anxiety, as he’s far too caught up in perfecting his sales pitch. “Couldn’t ask for a better place to raise a fauntling, if you ask me. Fresh air, open space, safe roads.”

Bungo and Belladonna glance not-so-subtly at the rough ground beneath their feet.

“Well, once this one’s paved properly, that is,” Posco clarifies. “But it’s not just all that, you know. You’ll be buying a piece of Shire history.”

“How’s that?” Bungo asks skeptically.

“Well, during the Battle of Green Fields, Bullroarer Took stopped right at this very hill to water his horse. Surely the lady here wouldn’t say no to owning a part of her family history. I hope you don’t mind me noticing, ma’am, but that hair of yours certainly gives away your lineage.”

“Oh, not at all,” Belladonna laughs amiably. “And that’s quite an interesting detail! I had no idea Bullroarer stopped in Hobbiton. I’ll have to ask my father about it the next time I see him.”

“Well, it’s quite an obscure story, you see,” Posco is quick to add. “He might not know it. I could find the book for you if you’re interested, of course. Probably buried somewhere back home.”

He continues mumbling about how cluttered his house is and how he’s _sure_ he remembers reading it somewhere, until Bungo chooses to interrupt him: “If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Overhill, what brought you to selling the place?”

Posco suddenly adopts a solemn demeanor. “Well, you see, it originally belonged to my father. He started to build into it before any of us were born, as a sort of wedding gift for my mother. Didn’t get very far before I showed up, and then my sister, and then my brother, and then my other two sisters, and then my other brother. And they just couldn’t afford to build anymore. I lost my father last month.” With that he removes his tattered cloth hat and places it over his heart.

“Oh dear, I’m so sorry,” Bungo and Belladonna say almost in unison.

“Aged one-hundred-and-five,” Posco nods. “As the firstborn, The Hill was passed on to me, but seeing as I’m no richer than he was, I can’t do much with it. Got four little ones of my own, you see. Figured I’d let it go to someone who could maybe do something great with it, and make some profit to support the family while I was at it. Certainly would be an honor to sell it to a Baggins. To turn what my father started into something Hobbiton can be proud of, you see.”

The barest hint of a tear forms in his left eye.

He wipes it away discreetly and huffs an embarrassed laugh.

Bungo hands him his handkerchief.

Posco thanks him profusely, dabs at his eyes, and returns it.

He sniffles.

And that’s how Belladonna and Bungo Baggins end up buying The Hill in Hobbiton proper.

They don’t look each other in the eye on the ride back to Tuckborough, and Bungo chooses to skip afternoon tea with his family. He’s not exactly in the mood to be scolded at the moment, and that’s most certainly what would happen. He didn’t even read the contract all the way through before signing. Is this what happens when one lives in close quarters with Tooks?

And yet even Belladonna, in all her Tookishness, seems to realize this isn’t the wisest decision one could make, if her silence for the rest of the afternoon is anything to go by. She doesn’t once tease him or declare him adorable or praise him for his spontaneity. It would seem even the most adventurous types are smart enough to draw the line somewhere. And apparently that line comes right before buying a shabby, decrepit old hill based on nothing but a sob story.

Goodness, if he doesn’t stop handing respectability out left and right, he won’t have any left for himself.


	5. An Adventure

_“This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected.”_

“You’ve been swindled.”

Gandalf is back in their parlor, once again balanced precariously on that rickety chair, wearing a matter-of-fact expression and a pipe between his lips. Belladonna’s in the armchair, legs curled up beneath her. Bungo has settled on pacing back and forth before the fire, every so often leaning onto the mantelpiece for support. Gandalf’s scolding is backed by the hum of his sisters-in-law chatting in the kitchen and Togo’s customary clanging.

It’s been two days since they agreed to buy The Hill, and not an hour has passed when he hasn’t cursed himself for acting so rashly. Honestly, letting his emotions dictate his life decisions? Investing in something so utterly hopeless without first doing the proper research? Trusting a stranger’s word just because he shed a few tears? That wasn’t the behavior of a Baggins. That was almost… well, Tookish!

He’s been trying his hardest to ignore that line of thinking. In fact, he’s been trying very hard not to think at all, reading whatever book he can get his hands on or jotting down a few admittedly dreadful slogan ideas for Olo Danderfluff’s Hamfast. Of course he won’t be able to avoid thinking for very long, as he already signed a contract to own an overgrown mess of a hill and will eventually have to figure out what to do with it.

The sudden appearance of Gandalf the Grey on his doorstep not fifteen minutes after dinner isn’t helping matters. At some point after their trip to Hobbiton Belladonna slipped away to the Great Smials and informed him of their new investment. The wizard put his esteemed wisdom to work calculating exactly how poor a decision it was, as if they couldn’t estimate that already.

Bungo refuses to admit defeat. “What do you mean ‘swindled’? It was a fair price. We can afford it. I know it doesn’t look like much, but we just need to clean it up a bit. Anyway, what are you still doing in the Shire? I thought you were accompanying Isengar on a golfing trip.”

Gandalf sighs. “It was delayed.”

“Ah yes, of course it was. Well, I beg your pardon, but your opinion on this matter really isn’t needed.”

“Bungo Baggins!” Gandalf all but roars. “If you wish to avoid further embarrassment, you will listen to me!” He doesn’t rise from his chair, but his posture changes, as if he’s grown taller, casting an impressive shadow and — is that wind? The ceilings seem to stretch to accommodate him, and in the midst of being terrified, Bungo wonders if said stretching will be permanent. It certainly would save money on remodeling. Not that it will matter for much longer, Bungo reminds himself with a cringe.

He glances at Belladonna, who merely shrugs at him as if she’s seen this happen hundreds of times before. He looks back to Gandalf and takes an instinctive step back. He’s not entirely sure what kind of magic the wizard is capable of — up until now he’d thought it was just fireworks — but he’d very much like to escape before he’s turned into a grasshopper or sprouting a beard.

Gandalf seems to soften now, and he adopts an almost apologetic expression. Not one that says, “I’m sorry for scaring you like that,” but rather “I’m sorry you were foolish enough to _make_ me scare you like that.” He and the ceilings settle to their regular heights, and he sighs.

“Perhaps it would interest you to know that I investigated this Mr. Posco Overhill, and not only does he not have any children of his own, but his father is alive and well and living in Frogmorton.”

If Gandalf had yet to notice Bungo’s habit of stammering, there’s really no missing it now. Every time he attempts to begin a sentence, his tongue doubles back and chooses a different word. When he finally does spit out a complete thought, it amounts to: “Could have been a different one.”

“A different…?” Gandalf looks at him inquisitively.

“Overhill. How do you know that’s Posco’s father? Could be a distant cousin. Or the father of another Posco Overhill. These mix-ups do happen, you know.”

“I made no such mistake.”

“How can you be sure?”

Gandalf’s voice can only be described as a bark. “Because I knocked on the senior Mr. Overhill’s door this afternoon, and his son was sitting in the parlor having tea and bragging to anyone who would listen about how he conned a Baggins into buying his hill. So unless there are two Posco Overhills who just recently sold land to a Baggins in Hobbiton under false pretenses, I am quite certain I found the right one.”

At that, Belladonna lets out an involuntary snigger which she quickly tries to disguise as a cough.

Bungo opens his mouth, hoping that a clever response will somehow find its way out. All that escapes him is an undignified squeak, followed by a desperate: “Bullroarer Took!”

“I beg your pardon?” Gandalf asks incredulously.

“Bullroarer Took. Stopped right at that hill to water his horse during the Battle of Green Fields. We’re buying a piece of history.”

Gandalf rolls his eyes. “And I’m sure good old Posco has a very obscure book somewhere that proves it, if only it didn’t take so much trouble to find.”

Confounded wizards.  

“Have you looked at The Hill?” Gandalf asks then.

Bungo stares at him. “Have I…? Of course I’ve looked at it! How else do you think all of this happened?”

“What I mean is, did you _look_ at it? All of it? From all angles? Inside and out?”

Bungo gulps. Of course the answer is no, but admitting it is out of the question. What’s happened to him? Being lectured about sensibility by _Gandalf the Grey_? A man who leads young hobbits into danger and calls it _golfing_? He had a good head on his shoulders once. It’s these close quarters. He can’t think straight anymore. He needs to get out.

Yes, _that_ ’s it! That’s what the wizard doesn’t understand. Every hobbit hole is cramped to him; he has no idea what Bungo has to put up with. Gandalf is going on and on now about tree roots and unlevel ground and shoddy construction. Bungo stands right in front of him, suddenly feeling very superior now that Gandalf is just below eye level.

“Let me explain something,” Bungo interrupts, and Gandalf initially reacts with shock, but after a few seconds he actually looks intrigued. “For a whole year now, I’ve been cooped up in a five-room hatbox with three women and hardly any space to hang my coat. You like adventures? Try making it to the breakfast table in this place at a reasonable hour. _That’s_ an adventure.”

“That still doesn’t make this a good idea,” Gandalf counters.

Bungo hesitates, turning to look at Belladonna, who’s still curled up in the armchair. She nods at him encouragingly. He stands up straight, clears his throat: “Good idea or no, it’s done now. I’ve signed the papers, and I’ve given my word, and there’s no going back on it. And anyway, sometimes it’s the things that are roughest around the edges that bring you the most joy. You don’t buy those things with your head. You buy them with your heart. _Our_ hearts were in the right place, even if Mr. Overhill’s wasn’t. And what really matters is that when we fix the place up, we can say it’s ours. Our hill. Our house. Our home.”

He stands there awkwardly for a moment, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Gandalf’s expression is unreadable. _Now_ what is he supposed to do? He settles for just staring at the ground, until he feels a familiar pair of hands settle on either side of his face. He looks up to see Belladonna smiling at him fondly.

“Our adventure,” she adds. And with that she kisses the tip of his nose.

They both look to Gandalf. His gaze is softened, and he sighs, shaking his head: “Hobbits.”

* * *

Despite clearly being very charmed by Bungo’s speech, Gandalf still recommends they get a second look at The Hill as soon as possible, and he insists on being there when they do it. Bungo wonders if all wizards are this meddlesome. He suspects not, otherwise he’d probably have met them.

They take Gandalf’s cart, which Bungo is actually grateful for since it means he won’t risk getting turned around again. Getting lost in front of Milo Proudfoot is one thing. Getting lost in front of Gandalf the Grey? He shudders to consider it.

It’s a tight fit for all of them in the seat of the cart, even with two out of three passengers being hobbits. Belladonna sits between the two gentlemen, and Bungo can’t decide if that’s the better or worse scenario. Better because he’d prefer not to sit hip-to-hip with Gandalf the Grey. Worse because… well, he’d prefer for Belladonna not to sit hip-to-hip with Gandalf the Grey either. Especially when they spend the entire trip sharing both pipe-weed and private jokes in equal measure.

After some time straining to hear whatever story it is that’s making Belladonna laugh so melodically, Bungo gives up and decides it’s better to just tune them out. Of course, the one time they choose to involve him in the conversation, he quickly discovers he’s the butt of the joke. They’ve just crossed the bridge when Gandalf raises his voice and says over Belladonna’s head:

“Bungo, your wife tells me you lost your way the last time you were here. Twice.”

Bungo shoots Belladonna a betrayed look. She’s covering her mouth in an “Oh dear, I wasn’t supposed to talk about that, was I?” sort of way. Unfortunately his wife’s love of storytelling comes at the expense of any sort of conversational filter, especially regarding his more embarrassing moments.

“It’s nothing to worry about, my dear Bungo,” Gandalf chuckles, seeming to notice his dismay. “If it ever happens again, just imagine you’re Bullroarer Took’s horse and you’re very thirsty. Where would you go for a drink of water?”

The sound Belladonna makes at that can only be described as a guffaw. The expression Bungo adopts can only be described as a glower. And as long as we’re employing _G_ words, his thoughts can only amount to, “Go away, Gandalf the Grey!”

Except he doesn’t go away, and this not going away of his lasts all the way to their arrival at The Hill. “There she is,” Gandalf declares with no small amount of irony. They sit in the cart staring for a moment. Just as Bungo is about to comment (or more accurately, lie) that the grass looks more lush in the morning light than it did the other afternoon, he’s interrupted by the sound and sight of part of the wooden door frame popping out and falling to the ground, as if it had been holding on for dear life until they could witness its collapse. Until Gandalf the Grey could witness its collapse, more specifically. Bungo doesn’t even have to glance at the wizard to know he’s smirking.

“It just needs a little love,” Belladonna offers, perhaps trying to make up for her earlier treachery.

“Mmm,” Gandalf hums around his pipe. “Well, it’s a good thing there are two of you. One to love it, and one to hold it up.”

Bungo turns his head accusingly. “This hill has been standing for who knows how many years. You take one look at it and it starts to fall apart.”

And with that he jumps off the cart, making sure not to stumble from the increased height. He’s had enough embarrassment for one day. “Would you like to come in and have a look around?” he calls over his shoulder as he climbs the steps, if you can call them that. He wants to appear confident that what he’ll find inside will be promising, but he’s almost positive it won’t be, so internally he wills Gandalf to say no.

“No, thank you,” Gandalf responds. _Small victories_ , Bungo thinks, and peers through the doorway. It’s very dark. He can’t see two feet in front of him.

He soon learns the reason for that. The hill hasn’t even been excavated much further than two feet, but his nose discovers that before his brain does as he walks face-first into a wall of dirt. “Sticklebats!” he shouts.

“Bungo? Bungo, what happened? Are you hurt?” Belladonna wastes no time hurrying up the steps to meet him.

“No, no, I’m fine,” he insists, rubbing his nose. “Only it would seem that ‘partially excavated,’ while not completely untrue, was a bit of an overstatement on Posco’s part.”

“Oh no, come here,” Belladonna coos, guiding her husband’s hands away from his face and offering one of her patented nose kisses. Whatever parts of Bungo’s face aren’t already red from the recent impact are quickly tinted to match.

Belladonna looks him in the eye. “Better?” she asks. He smiles weakly and nods.

She slips her hand into the crook of his elbow, and the two of them make their way back down to the road where Gandalf is waiting in the cart with a smug expression that soon devolves into what almost looks like pity. Almost.

“Let me give you some advice,” he sighs. “I know of a dwarf, an excellent craftsman with a team of workers set up in Bree for the season…”

“No, no, no,” Bungo objects, wagging his finger. “We don’t need any dwarves for this. We’ll hire hobbits. This town was built with hobbit hands. Bag End will be no different.”

“Bag End?” Belladonna asks with bright eyes.

“Oh…” He wasn’t supposed to let that slip yet. “Well, yes, I was thinking maybe that’s what we could call the place. If you like it, that is. I wouldn’t want to name it something you disapprove of. And of course we have to actually build it first, and…”

Belladonna places a finger over her husband’s lips. “I love it,” she says with a smile so warm Bungo feels like he’s just swallowed an enormous gulp of tea with extra sugar.

“Whatever you’re going to call the place,” Gandalf just _has_ to cut in, “I still think you should consider speaking to those dwarves. This is quite a daunting endeavor.”

“Thank you for your advice, Gandalf, but it’s really not needed. No dwarves will have a hand in building this house. We’ll get hobbits.”

* * *

And so they get hobbits. Three of them, to be precise. Experienced hobbits who’ve built home after home throughout the Westfarthing. They each take a look at The Hill and offer their expert opinions.

The first one says, “You need dwarves.”

On the other hand, the second one says, “Get yourself some dwarves.”

And finally there’s the third one: “Dwarves.”

It would seem that the Bagginses are in need of dwarves.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, there will be dwarves. Every good adventure needs them. *over-the-top wink*
> 
> Thanks for reading! Reminder that I'm on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com/).


	6. The Best Rooms

  _“The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill … and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another.”_

 

Although every hobbit they speak to refuses to build the Bagginses’ house themselves, insisting they would be better suited with dwarf workers, one of them, Minto Bramble, does offer to help them with a floorplan. “Dwarves and hobbits have rather dissimilar tastes,” he explains. “If you leave the design in their hands, you could end up with something very unsatisfactory indeed. All sharp angles and cold stone. Maybe even square windows.”

Bungo certainly doesn’t want that, so he invites Minto to take a look at The Hill and draw up a plan for him and Belladonna to consider. Minto is extremely organized and very eager, and he gets to work right away. He’s so efficient, in fact, that Bungo is surprised to find the hobbit, a middle-aged gentleman in an impeccable velvet jacket, at the door of their hole only a day after they first spoke.

Just because he’s surprised doesn’t mean he isn’t pleased, of course. Bungo is thrilled find _something_ reliable amidst all of this madness. “Very prompt indeed!” he declares, stepping aside to let Minto in. “Are you absolutely sure you can’t build the house?”

Minto laughs politely. “As much as I’d like to, Mr. Bungo, it’s simply too big a task. That’s quite the hill you’ve acquired up there. You go ahead and get those dwarves.”

“Yes, of course,” Bungo agrees, failing to hide the disappointment in his voice. He leads Minto into the kitchen, where Belladonna and her sisters are enjoying afternoon tea — with a side of hat-making. It’s their new favorite hobby, one of many which change periodically. A few months ago it was learning Sindarin, then it was watercolors. Now it’s hat-making, which means the kitchen table is covered from end to end in fabrics, thread and trimmings, including but not limited to ribbons, lace, flowers and feathers, a fair portion of which have been stained brown from spilt tea. To really set the mood, Togo is in the corner making his usual racket.

Bungo clears his throat. “Ladies, this is Minto Bramble. He’s brought a floorplan for us to look at.”

“Floorplan? For what?” Donnamira wonders, glancing up from her work sewing a bead to the brim of a bright yellow bonnet.

Bungo sees Belladonna stiffen and curses himself as he realizes the reason for Donnamira’s confusion. They weren’t telling the girls about The Hill just yet, having decided to send them back to the Great Smials instead of inviting them to Hobbiton. So far Donnamira and Mirabella had thought the couple’s trips northward were to see Bungo’s family. Bungo had figured his wife would be the one to break and tell them the details out of excitement. Apparently she’d held for longer than he expected.

“You’re not leaving Tuckborough, are you?” Mirabella whines, and when no one answers, not even a visibly nervous Minto Bramble, she rises from her chair in a flurry of feathers and storms out of the room and then out of the house entirely, Donnamira following close behind. “Why do you always leave us?” one of them can be heard saying.

“Oh dear, I'm terribly sorry about that,” Bungo mutters, and Belladonna stands to give him a reassuring tug on his waistcoat.

“Don’t worry about it, dear. They would have had to find out one way or another. Let them take out their emotions on whatever poor neighbor is currently being forced to listen to their complaints. We’ll talk to them about it later when they’ve calmed down.” She turns to their guest. “For now, let’s see that floorplan, Mr. Bramble!”

“Yes, of course.” Minto is currently showing signs of the type of fluster that can only be achieved after spending time with Tooks. He eyes the cluttered table. “Where do you want it?”

“Oh, just place it anywhere,” Belladonna replies, gesturing vaguely.

Minto huffs an uncertain laugh, no doubt thinking she must be joking. When she doesn’t move to clear the mess or offer him another option, he tentatively unrolls the parchment in his hand and sets it on the neatest part of the table over a substantial pile of mismatched buttons.

Minto begins to speak, but he’s rather overpowered by the sound of Togo’s clanging. “Just a moment,” Bungo says, grabbing the cage and hurrying into the parlor with it. As we’ve established before, that does very little to control the noise. _I can’t wait to be away from that confounded bird_ , Bungo thinks as he reenters the kitchen with a smile.

The three hobbits lean over the sheet as Minto explains his work, pointing to each neatly sketched room with the stem of his unlit pipe: “I’ve drawn up a very basic plan here. There’s an entrance hall, a parlor, a kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom.”

“Hmm,” Bungo replies. He can’t help feeling dissatisfied. This isn’t what he was expecting, but he’s not sure why. He scratches his head, trying to pin down exactly what it is about this plan that feels so wrong to him, so incomplete, so… familiar. Suddenly it hits him harder than that bottle of soap that fell off a shelf and onto his foot in the bathroom the other day.

“Minto, my good fellow, you’ve done an excellent job here, you really have. Very organized and beautifully planned out. I can’t help but notice, however, that this is almost the exact floorplan we have now, in this very house. I was rather hoping, since we’re building the place ourselves, that we would expand things a bit. Perhaps include a few extra rooms? And bigger ones? After all, it looks like there’s quite a bit of hill here that you haven’t utilized.”

“Oh yes, of course, Mr. Bungo,” Minto agrees. “Like I said, this is just a basic plan. You don’t have to adhere to any of this. We can certainly work something up that you’ll be happy with. What were you thinking?”

“Well…” Bungo takes another look at the plan, and suddenly all that extra, unexcavated hill becomes a sea of possibility. This is _his_ house, and it can be exactly the type of place he’s always dreamed of. Before he can even think about it, he’s snatching quill and ink from the far end of the table, where the ladies have been using it to trace hat patterns. “I was thinking…”

Half an hour later, Minto Bramble’s meticulous floorplan is covered in splotchy scribbles from both Bungo and Belladonna, who couldn’t resist providing her own input. Minto, meanwhile, hovers nearby, watching his careful work be vandalized before his very eyes, trying continuously to get a word in but failing.

“If we could just add a wine cellar off the back of the pantry…” Bungo is muttering, sketching a crude rectangle and labeling it. “I’ve always dreamt of having a good supply of wine at the ready.”

“Excuse me, dear,” Belladonna cuts in, grabbing the quill from her husband and moving to the other side of the plan. “This bedroom is too small, so we’ll need to expand that, and I’d love to add a little connected study, so I can have some privacy to write.”

To write? Belladonna wants to write? About what? That’s the first Bungo’s heard of this. Why hasn't she mentioned it? He quickly forgets about it, however, because a more pressing thought enters his mind: “Wardrobes!” He grabs the quill back and starts drawing. “Lots of wardrobes! If there’s one thing this family needs, it’s wardrobes! And lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats in the entrance hall!”

“And we’ll of course want the best rooms to be in the front of the house,” Belladonna adds, “so they can have windows that let the sun in and look out into the garden, and out at the town and the water. Good windows are very important.”

“Yes, a very good point, dear,” Bungo nods. “Oh, and a dining room, of course! How could I forget? We’ll want it to be off the kitchen and across from the pantry. For easy access, you know. It should be big enough to hold at least thirteen, I’d say.”

Belladonna has already started talking before Bungo is halfway finished with this explanation: “And off the back door leading into the garden, a little flower sink, with a stone floor, and shelves for vases and a shed for gardening tools.”

“And a smoking room!” Bungo declares, taking the quill and scrawling just such a room in the corner of the plan.

They go on like this for several minutes longer, until Minto finally manages to pry the parchment from the Bagginses' clutches, although not without having an extra wine cellar inadvertently scribbled on the back of his hand in the process. He assesses their work and lets out an anxious whine.

“I’m afraid this plan doesn’t accommodate for the very large oak tree growing up through the center of The Hill. It will undoubtedly need its own hall.”

“Yes, I was hoping we could have that removed,” Bungo shrugs. “We can always plant another one in the garden. All we’d need is an acorn, after all.”

Minto appears speechless as he returns his attention to the sheet in front of him. “Mrs. Baggins, the way you’ve drawn this parlor, the chimney stack would come right up through the middle of the room. It would certainly keep you warm in winter, but it wouldn’t be very practical.”

“Can’t you just put the chimney somewhere else?” Belladonna suggests.

Minto looks as if she’s just suggested they build the house upside down. He takes a deep breath and smooths his jacket, puffing up his chest. “Here’s what I suggest. You leave this with me, and I’ll draw up something that’s sure to satisfy you by tomorrow evening. You can show it to your dwarf workers, and they can take it from there. And I beg your pardon, Mr. and Mrs. Baggins, but after that I’d prefer never to hear from either of you ever again. Good afternoon.”

And with that he shows himself out, leaving the Bagginses standing flabbergasted in their kitchen with ink-stained hands.

“We should make sure to pay him well,” Belladonna remarks after a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com).


	7. An Important Dwarf

_"We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures._ _Nasty disturbing uncomfortable_ _things! Make you late for dinner!"_

 _Never venture east._ One visit to Bree is all it takes for Bungo to turn these three words into his life’s motto.

He’s up to his ankles in mud, wet curls hanging in his eyes, his jacket all but ruined, being led by Gandalf the Grey through streets inhabited by less-than-savory characters who don’t appear to be very well-acquainted with their bathtubs.

His entire life he’d never even been as far as Buckland. He’d heard queer things about folk over there. Things about shoes and beards and swimming. He’d shuddered to consider it and could hardly believe it to be true. That was before he and Gandalf stayed overnight at an inn on the edge of the Old Forest. The rumors were true. Every single one of them, right down to the very last hair on the barman’s chin. He’s trying his very hardest to forget about it.

“Just my luck,” Bungo grumbles now. “The one day I leave the Shire and it decides to pour.”

“Don’t give yourself so much credit, Bungo,” Gandalf laughs. “A dry Bree is far more unusual than a wet one.”

That would explain why Belladonna had been so agreeable when Bungo insisted she stay home. And why she’d told him to “get his toes wet” in the outside world. He supposes he can cross Bree off his list of possible places Belladonna has had adventures. He would be very irritated with her if he wasn’t so sure she’d welcome him home with a warm mug of tea and an even warmer embrace.

Gandalf takes long strides, seeming to forget that his companion’s legs are considerably shorter than his own. Bungo struggles to keep up with him while also side-stepping whatever puddles he can spot in his path. He’s so distracted that he doesn’t even notice when the wizard has stopped moving, and he nearly collides with… well, a certain part of Gandalf he would prefer not to collide with face-first. In fact, he’d much rather ram his nose ten more times into that wall of dirt beneath The Hill.

They’ve arrived at a wooden stall, the opening of which is covered by a ragged tarp. Gandalf reaches to push it aside but hesitates and looks down at Bungo, who has settled at his side and is staring at him expectantly. He _would_ like to get out of this rain some time soon.

“Bungo, I must warn you that the dwarf we’re here to see can be a bit… ill-tempered. Particularly around those who are not his kin. It’s best if you leave the talking to me.”

Bungo puffs up, indignant. “We’ll see about that. As I’ve told you time and time again, Gandalf, I’m perfectly capable of handling my own affairs. I only brought you along as a guide and an intermediary. Now lead the way, please.”

Gandalf sighs before pushing the tarp aside with the head of his staff. He and Bungo slip through and are bombarded by the sound of hammers on metal. The air on the streets of Bree hadn’t exactly been pleasant — Bungo picked out the scents of horse manure and sour ale, among other things — but in here it causes him to physically choke. The heat is stifling, and whatever clothing isn’t already stuck to his skin from the rain is quickly stuck to it with perspiration. He smells coal and smoke and sweat.

“Beards,” Bungo mutters, still not quite recovered from his Buckland experience, as Gandalf leads him past dwarf after stout dwarf, all toiling away at forges and anvils and being very loud about it. The stall is not large by any means, so they’re in rather close quarters, and Bungo marvels at how they avoid accidentally beating each other over the head or poking each other’s eyes out with wayward tools.

None of the dwarves even glance up from their work to acknowledge the visitors. Bungo is rather well-concealed behind Gandalf’s robes, so he suspects — with a great deal of relief — that even if they paid attention to the wizard, they’d remain unaware of his own presence.

Gandalf comes to a halt at the far end of the stall, where a dark-haired dwarf stands swinging his hammer against red iron with a great deal more passion than his fellow smiths. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbows to reveal impressive forearms, and his back is nearly as broad as two hobbits. Bungo can’t see his face just yet, but he doesn’t predict it will look very happy.

Gandalf clears his throat in a bid for the dwarf’s attention, but he is ignored. “Good afternoon,” he tries this time, scooting cautiously around to the dwarf’s side to make himself more visible.

After one, two, three more strikes to the anvil, the dwarf finally looks up. “What is it?” he asks, and his voice is as deep and as rough-hewn as you’d expect given his appearance, and yet it still takes Bungo by surprise. He jumps, grateful that he’s still out of the dwarf’s line of sight.

“Perhaps I should introduce myself,” the wizard responds. “I am Gandalf the Grey.”

“I know who you are,” the dwarf replies impatiently.

“Well then, very good. And this is Mr. Bungo Baggins of the Shire.”

The dwarf turns his head, only enough to get a look at Bungo, not enough to properly face him. The hobbit glimpses a noble profile before matching gazes with a pair of stern blue eyes in the shade of heavy brows. Bungo is suddenly very self-conscious of his unkempt, drowned appearance.

“Bungo, this is Thorin Oakenshield,” Gandalf offers, since Thorin doesn’t seem eager to introduce himself on his own.

“At your service,” Bungo says with a nod and the most sociable smile he can muster.

Thorin turns back to Gandalf. “What is this about?”

“Ah, yes. Well, you see, our Bungo here has just bought a rather large hill in Hobbiton, and he plans to build his home into it. Perhaps you’ve heard tell of the Shire style of living. It’s not so very different from the dwarven style, if you think about it. Underground homes.”

“Aye, I am familiar with it,” Thorin gruffs. “Although I would hardly compare it to building under a mountain,” he adds wryly.

Gandalf laughs perhaps a bit too forcefully. “Yes, of course. Actually, that’s precisely why we’re here. The job is simply too large for hobbit hands alone. Some outside assistance will be required. Bungo would like to request the services of your workers, if you can spare them.”

Thorin gets another look at Bungo and narrows his eyes. He couldn’t possibly think Bungo untrustworthy, could he? He may not look his best — or his driest — at the moment, but he hardly thinks he looks like a crook. He’s no Posco Overhill, that’s for sure.

Oh, bother Gandalf doing the talking. “I have a floorplan, if you’d like some idea of what you’d be dealing with,” Bungo offers. He reaches into his jacket pocket and returns with a soggy, smeared parchment. He clears his throat and carefully unfolds it, only to discover that the plan is entirely unreadable. He hopes Minto Bramble drew up a copy, but he doesn’t look forward to asking him for it.

Thorin looks less than amused.

“We’ll pay you generously,” Bungo attempts, placing the parchment back into his pocket as if it didn’t even happen. “In coin and in food. And there’s an inn that I’m sure would be happy to accommodate you, with plenty of ale. The Green Dragon.”

Thorin turns his head abruptly. “Dragon? Do you think that’s funny?”

Bungo is sure he has no idea what Thorin means, but he’s terrified nonetheless.

“Harmless, of course,” Gandalf assures him, shooting Bungo a warning glance. He decides perhaps it really is best to stop talking. “What say you, Thorin? Can we count on your help?”

Thorin sighs, rubbing his close-cropped beard with thick fingers. Bungo wonders why he doesn’t wear his beard long, like most of the other dwarves in the stall. He doesn’t dare ask, of course. He thinks Thorin might be even more intimidating than Gandalf is when he does that terrifying wind trick.

“Very well,” Thorin decides, pulling Bungo from his reverie. Oh dear. This is actually happening, then. Thorin Oakenshield, the dwarf who looked as if he wanted to have the hobbit’s head for merely using the word “dragon,” will be building his house. A terrible thought enters Bungo’s mind, and he wonders if perhaps Thorin would construct his house to fall down around him out of spite. No, surely he’d take more pride in his work than to do something like that. Wouldn’t he?

“I’ll send a group of workers to the Shire,” Thorin is saying. “I must remain here…”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Bungo says without thinking. When he realizes, all he can do is stare at Thorin in horror.

The dwarf chooses to ignore the outburst, although his face briefly contorts into something almost… pained? Whatever it is, it vanishes just as quickly as it appears, and he continues: “…but my dwarves are very capable, I can assure you.”

“I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t —” Bungo begins frantically, but Gandalf cuts him off.

“My dear Bungo, why don’t you wait outside while Thorin and I go over the details of this arrangement, and I’ll catch you up on our way back to Hobbiton.”

Bungo hates acquiescing to Gandalf’s suggestions, but the alternative involves remaining in the presence of the moody dwarf he’s just insulted. So he says a polite “Thank you, good afternoon” and hurries out of the stall so quickly the dwarves probably don’t even notice he was there to begin with.

It’s still raining, of course. Bungo finds the nearest covering and stands there with his arms crossed, making sure to put as much distance as possible between himself and a very drunk-looking man eating a carrot.

 _Well_ , Bungo thinks to himself, _I suppose that could have gone better_.

* * *

“My goodness, look at you!” Belladonna exclaims with delight when Bungo steps through the door the next evening looking less than respectable, to say the least. She assesses him from head to toe and appears very pleased. “A traveling Baggins is a handsome Baggins, it would seem.” Bungo hopes the dirt on his face hides the blush that promptly ignites his cheeks. “Oh, but you must be miserable in those clothes. Let’s get you out of them,” his wife adds suggestively.

Bungo’s eyes threaten to leap out of his head entirely, and he loudly clears his throat to alert his wife to the presence of a certain grey wizard following him into the house. “Belladonna,” he warns under his breath.

“Hello, Gandalf!” she greets, unconcerned with whether he overheard. “Thank you for returning my husband to me in one piece.”

“It was no trouble at all, my dear. You’ll be pleased to hear that our trip was a success. A team of dwarves will be at The Hill in a week’s time, ready to work. I’ll let Bungo catch you up on the details.”

My, how generous of him.

They’d stayed at that blasted inn again on the way home, and Bungo swore the barman’s beard was even longer than the first time. After scolding him for his embarrassing slip-up, Gandalf had informed Bungo of the arrangement with the dwarves over a drink, with the wizard hunched uncomfortably over a hobbit-sized table and looking satisfactorily absurd.

The figures were certainly steep, and for not the first time in this adventure, Bungo wondered what he’d gotten himself into. But then he thought about his wine cellar and his smoking room and his view of Hobbiton and his birdless parlor and his first breakfast and his beautiful wife tucked into a chair by the fire, perhaps with a babe in her arms, and he thought maybe, just maybe, this would all be worth it.

Even his trek through the mud and damp might be worth it, he’s beginning to realize, based on the way Belladonna is looking at him now. He’d prefer that she do so away from where Gandalf the Grey can bear witness, and without that blasted bird clanging away in the parlor or his sisters-in-law making a mess of his kitchen with dinner. But he can’t really complain.

“I can’t wait to hear about it,” Belladonna is saying.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Gandalf declares. “Pleasure doing business with you, Bungo.” He offers Bungo a firm handshake which the hobbit can’t help but return.

“Good evening, Belladonna.” And with no small amount of effort, he kneels and kisses her on the cheek. Bungo suddenly feels his face flush and his stomach do something very unpleasant, and it’s not out of embarrassment.

“Thank you for everything, Gandalf,” Belladonna responds with a smile as the wizard closes the door behind him. Bungo’s muscles tense.

His wife turns to him with that look in her eye again. “Now, what do you say we get you into a bath before dinner?” She begins unbuttoning his waistcoat and gently pushing him in the direction of the bathroom.

But Bungo’s mind is elsewhere, and he bursts out, “Why have you stopped calling him ‘Uncle’?”

Belladonna continues her work on those buttons and replies distantly, “Pardon?”

“Gandalf. You don’t call him ‘Uncle’ anymore like you used to. Mirabella and Donnamira still do. Why don’t you?”

Belladonna stops, looks up at him, and shrugs. “Oh I don’t know, I suppose because it’s rather childish, isn’t it? But I’m not a child anymore. And after everything, Gandalf feels less like an uncle now and more like a friend.”

“What do you mean ‘after everything’? What exactly happened on these adventures with Gandalf that you’re so reluctant to tell me about?”

“Oh my!” Belladonna clasps a hand over her mouth, but he can still see that smirk. “You’re jealous!”

“I just don’t always feel comfortable with him, that’s all. Every time he comes in here he gets more and more familiar. Like just now when he was leaving. He shook my hand, but he kissed you.”

“Would you prefer it the other way around?” Oh, Belladonna is far too proud of herself for that one.

“Why is he always sticking his nose into our business? Why doesn’t he get married or something?” It’s the only suggestion he can come up with at the moment, as ridiculous as it sounds.

“Because he can’t find another girl as pretty and sweet and clever as I am!” Belladonna can barely finish her sentence before she’s bursting into laughter.

Bungo hangs his head.

“Oh stop that, I’m only joking,” she assures him. “How can I give even the slightest thought to old Gandalf the Grey when I have this rugged hobbit adventurer in front of me?”

“And what about when I’m all cleaned up and done adventuring?” Bungo wonders.

“Dirty or clean, traveling or staying in one place, I love you every which way, Bungo Baggins, and don’t you forget it.” She tugs on his rather sad-looking cravat for emphasis. “And anyway, it isn’t Gandalf you’re worried about, is it? It’s this Hill business that’s upsetting you, and you need someone to take it out on.”

Bungo can’t deny it. “I suppose that’s part of it, yes.”

Belladonna wraps her arms around her husband, not caring in the slightest that he’s transferring two days’ worth of dirt onto the front of her dress. “Don’t worry, dear. It’ll all be worth it, you’ll see. It isn’t just a house we’re building, after all. It’s a home. For ourselves and our children. And maybe our children’s children.”

Bungo sighs contentedly. “Each with a spacious wardrobe all their own.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course Thorin had a cameo! Did you really think I'd pass up that opportunity? Sorry he won't be sticking around, but we can't have him become too familiar with Hobbiton, after all. 
> 
> Next chapter we'll finally start to get this house built! Thanks for reading! I'm on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com).


	8. Excellent Fireworks

_“Bungo, that was Bilbo’s father, built the most luxurious hobbit-hole for her (and partly with her money) that was to be found either under The Hill or over The Hill or across The Water…”_

Dirt. So much dirt. Bungo didn’t think this much dirt even existed in the world, let alone beneath The Hill. Of course, it isn’t beneath The Hill anymore, at least not most of it. Instead, it’s been shot over the edge of the road and left in a burgeoning heap on the slope leading down to the main town.

There are several carts crowding the road, and a dozen dwarves are hard at work tunneling into the side of The Hill, scooping out dirt with shovels and picks the size of which Bungo can barely comprehend. They’ve formed an assembly line of sorts, with some of them digging and the ones behind them shoving the discarded dirt away from The Hill until it lands in the aforementioned mound.

Bungo hops down from Gandalf’s cart where it’s been parked a safe distance away from the excavation. He begins to hurry around to Belladonna’s side to lend her his hand but finds her already being assisted by the wizard. Bungo straightens his waistcoat with a tad more force than is required.

“See, Bungo? What did I tell you about hiring dwarves? Look how efficient they are!” Gandalf remarks as they make their way closer.

Bungo’s eyes follow the trajectory of the latest shower of dirt to be added to the mound. “Hmm, efficient at marring the landscape. They will move all that dirt somewhere else, won’t they?”

“Of course they will. Let’s go have a word with one of them. I’m sure they have a plan. Master Dwarf!” Gandalf waves over one of the unoccupied dwarves.

The dwarf gives a short bow, his many auburn braids swinging. “What can I do for you?”

“What are your plans for the dirt that’s been removed?”

“The dirt? Why, it’s right over there.” The dwarf motions to the pile and looks very proud of himself for answering their question.

“Yes, we can see that,” Gandalf replies. “But what will you do with it once you’ve finished excavating? You’ll be taking it away, I assume?”

“Oh no, we can’t do that. We don’t have time to make all the trips back and forth. We’re on a tight schedule. We’re needed back in Bree soon, and we can’t spare the workers or the carts. And anyway, where would we take it all?”

“Anywhere!” Bungo cuts in.

“Can’t do it.” The dwarf shakes his head, and his braids take flight again.

“So you’re just going to leave it there?”

“Yes, exactly,” the dwarf confirms, once again looking very proud. He gives another bow and plods away.

“But… but…” Bungo’s pleas go ignored.

“Well, I suppose I was wrong about that,” Gandalf admits.

Gandalf was wrong. That’s one good thing to come out of this, at least.

“Don’t worry, Bungo. We’ll figure something out,” Belladonna says.

“Well, we can’t just leave a heaping pile of dirt there forever. What will the neighbors think?”

Belladonna appears to ponder this for a moment, adjusting the blue-green ribbon on her hat. It’s one of her creations from the other day, a cream bonnet with a flourish of white feathers on top. Bungo observes the lovely contrast with her dark hair. In the midst of admiring her, he notices her eyes widen, and all at once she grabs his sleeve. “Bungo! What if our neighbors were to _live_ in that heaping pile of dirt?”

“Why would our neighbors live in a pile of dirt?”

“Not the way it is now! We can turn it into a new row of smials and rent them out.”

New smials? On _his_ hill? Bungo considers this. “We couldn’t have the dwarves build it. If they don’t have time to remove the dirt, they certainly don’t have time to build anything out of it.”

“No, of course not. But we can get hobbits to do it. Not Minto Bramble, obviously, but someone else.”

“What a splendid idea, Belladonna!” Gandalf exclaims. “You’ve bought so much land. Might as well make some money from it.”

Bungo will do the wife-praising around here, thank you very much. “Oh, Belladonna! You’re so clever.”

“Of course I am! That’s why you married me,” she says with a wink. “Now what should we call it? Perhaps you should come up with the name, dear. You’re the wordsmith.”

“Am I? I recall hearing something the other day about you needing a place to write.”

“Well,” Belladonna begins, and oh goodness, is that a blush coloring her cheeks? The remarkable Belladonna Took, turning red over something _he_ said, and not simply from sitting too long in the sun or walking too far without a rest? He’ll have to make a note of that. “I certainly have plenty of stories to tell, but that hardly means I...” She trails off. “You’re the one who gets paid for being pithy.”

Yes, he does get paid for that…

“Oh dear.” Bungo tugs on his collar.

“What is it?”

“Olo Danderfluff.”

“Who?”

“Olo Danderfluff. Hamfast. Pre-sliced.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Bungo.”

“That blasted ham I was asked to think of a slogan for. I still haven’t come up with one. All this business with The Hill distracted me. Do you think he’ll… Oh, why is that tree still there?”

And so The Hill distracts him again as he realizes that the dwarves have yet to remove the great oak like he requested. They seem to have made quite a lot of progress on the excavation, so he suspects it should have been done by now. He leaves Belladonna and approaches the first dwarf he can find who isn’t using a tool that could hit him in the face.

“When will you be removing the tree?”

“The tree? You mean the oak?” This dwarf has a long brown beard woven into three thick braids resting on a stout belly. Bungo cannot imagine having hair long enough for such a creation on any part of his body, let alone his face.

He quickly forces his focus away from that and onto the matter at hand. “Yes. I’d like it to be dug up.”

The dwarf shakes his head. “Not possible, Master Hobbit. Those are load-bearing roots. If we take the tree out the entire hill will collapse. And I’m guessing you don’t want that to happen.” The dwarve huffs a hearty laugh. “No, the oak stays.”

“You mean we’ll be living with tree roots in the middle of our house?”

“Your architect made sure to accommodate them. The roots will get their own hall. Perhaps you can hang your clothes from them.”

“Hang clothes? That’s what I’m having so many wardrobes built for!”

“Do something else with it, then. But we can’t get rid of it.” And with that the dwarf wanders away. He really wishes they would stop doing that.

Bungo stands there uncertainly, then looks around for Belladonna, only to discover her laughing and smoking with Gandalf next to the cart. He takes a deep breath and hurries over. “We’re going to have a tree growing up through the middle of our house!”

“Are we really?” Belladonna gasps. “How wonderful!”

“Wonderful? Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, of course I did. That sounds marvelous. Like something in a book.”

“Well, I don’t want to live in a book. I want to live in a house.”

“And the only way you’ll have that house is if you keep that tree,” Gandalf chimes in. “Quite a conundrum, actually.”

Bungo looks back to The Hill. He raises his hands to block out the gaping hole, piles of dirt, and hairy dwarves milling about. Then he squints one eye closed and focuses on the tree. Its gnarled branches reach across the expanse of grass as if to shield it from the heat of the sun. The leaves flutter in the breeze, the bright green complemented nicely by the clear blue of the sky beyond. “It does look rather splendid up there, I suppose,” he admits. “If only I didn’t have to share a house with what’s beneath it.”

“We can’t only live with what’s on the outside, Bungo. We also have to make room for the awkwardness underneath,” Belladonna muses. “I believe that’s what marriage is all about,” she adds, pulling gently at his sleeve.

Bungo wants to tell Belladonna that there is no awkwardness to be found beneath her lovely branches, and that even if there were he wouldn’t hesitate to make room for it, but he just can’t bring himself to find the words, especially not with Gandalf hovering over them and several dwarves nearby. So he only smiles. He truly isn’t the wordsmith, he decides, at least not where it counts.

“ _Aban!_ ” one of the dwarves bellows from The Hill.

“What’s that about?” Bungo wonders, hoping beyond hope that nothing has gone wrong. Tree roots and mounds of dirt are bad enough without any more difficulties.

The three of them hurry towards the commotion, and the dwarves part to allow them up the steps to the mouth of the tunnel. “What seems to be the matter?” Gandalf asks.

The dwarf with the wayward braids from earlier emerges from the hole. “We hit a ledge.”

“What’s that?” Bungo wonders.

“A ledge is like a big stone. Only it’s bigger.”

“Like a boulder?”

“No, like a ledge. We need to use the picks to get through it.”

“And how long will that take?”

“It depends on how deep it goes. Longer than digging through dirt, that’s for sure. And we’re on a tight schedule.”

“Yes, so you said before. What are you going to do, then?”

“That’s up to you, Master Hobbit.” The dwarf raises his hand and counts on thick fingers coated with dirt. “One, we stop digging and only build half of what you planned. Two, we chip away the ledge, but leave some things unfinished.”

“Like what?

“Like your windows or your door or your fireplace or your wardrobes or...”

“My wardrobes?” Bungo’s stomach feels seconds away from splitting in half.

“Maybe.”

“Oh dear. And what is the third option?”

“Third? There’s no third. Just two.”

Bungo is quite certain this is the end. He’ll fare no better than the Overhills. In a month’s time he’ll be conning some poor lad and his wife into an only slightly better situation than his current one. At least now the place has been excavated more than a few feet.

It’s during this internal farewell party for his hopes and dreams that he realizes Gandalf has vanished. He’s become so accustomed to the wizard’s presence — and counsel, he’ll admit only to himself — that he actually feels unsettled. Turning around, he sees Gandalf returning from his cart with his staff in one hand a cluster of strangely familiar yet wholly unusual items in the other. As he gets closer, Bungo realizes where he’s seen them before.

“You’re going to use those… those… those _whiz-poppers_ to hollow out my house?”

“Calm down, Bungo. These are quite safe. It’s not as if I chose the dragon one.”

Bungo doesn’t understand what Gandalf is implying, and he doesn’t wish to find out. He’s just glad Thorin isn’t present. Rather touchy about dragons, that one.

“You’re in for quite a show,” Belladonna is telling the dwarves. She’s always loved Gandalf’s fireworks, as all the Tooks do. Bungo, on the other hand, can never be too far away from them. Sudden noises and potential burns are no good for his already feeble nerves, no matter how colorful and shimmering the things may be. He won’t deny, however, that he loves witnessing his wife’s face light up as she watches them.

Gandalf is stepping towards the opening now, still only holding his staff and the fireworks.

“Don’t you need kindling?” Bungo asks.

“Of course not,” the wizard laughs, crouching to enter the tunnel. He’s behaving like a giddy child, which is absurd considering how he towers over everyone and everything in his path.

“Stand back!” Gandalf shouts out of the dark, and all the dwarves — along with the Bagginses — scatter.

The wizard comes rushing out of the tunnel and scurries down the steps. He barely reaches the bottom before the fireworks live up to Bungo’s nickname. They hear a _whiz!_ and a _pop!_ and another _whiz!_ and another _pop!_ as spirals of blue and green shoot out of the hole and burst into a shower of sparks over the steps, leaving a cloud of smoke in their wake.

After a moment of quiet wonderment and a few coughs, the many-braided dwarf steps cautiously through the haze and into the tunnel to examine the result. He emerges seconds later.

“That was good,” he says with a nod. “Let’s get another one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, we’re finally making some progress! There will be plenty more mishaps, though, don’t you worry. (Sorry, Bungo.) 
> 
> Just FYI, my fancast for Belladonna is [Felicity Jones](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com/post/112430446982/fancast-felicity-jones-as-belladonna-took-as-i), and the hat she’s wearing in this chapter is based on [this one](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com/post/113132925432/to-think-that-i-should-have-lived-to-be-good).
> 
> As always, thanks for reading!
> 
>  _Aban_ \- Khuzdul for “stone.”


	9. Altogether Unexpected

_“No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage.”_

“What’s this? Another wardrobe?” Gandalf asks cheekily.

“No, of course not. This is the parlor,” Bungo explains.

Belladonna disagrees. “This isn’t the parlor, dear. It’s the dining room.”

“Oh.”

Those whiz-poppers did the trick, and the dwarves are back on schedule. Bag End is finally starting to look more like a house than a gaping hole, and the Bagginses are giving Gandalf the grand tour of the place, with Bungo scratching his head over the floorplan at every turn. There are definite rooms now, with walls and ceilings and floors, albeit unfinished ones. If only he could figure out which room is which.

They move out of the dining room. “So what’s this?” Gandalf asks.

“ _This_ is the parlor,” Bungo declares.

Belladonna shakes her head. “This is the kitchen, darling.”

“Oh.” They take a few more steps into the next room. “Well, this is definitely the parlor.” He glances at his wife. “Right?”

“Yes,” she confirms.

Bungo perks up. Third time pays for all, he always says, although he would usually prefer to get it right the first time.

As they’re examining what looks like the fireplace, Bungo notices the dwarf with the wild braids from their previous visit approaching them with plans in his hand. The plans Bungo had knocked on Minto Bramble’s door to retrieve a day after his adventure to Bree. The dapper hobbit had appeared none too pleased with Bungo’s presence, even less so when he was informed that his original work had been destroyed in a damp jacket pocket. Fortunately, Minto makes it a habit to draw up copies of all his plans. Since he’d had a hunch he hadn’t seen the last of the Bagginses, he’d drawn up even more copies of the Bag End plans than he usually would. Bungo had inundated him with an embarrassing amount of _thank you_ s on his way out.

“I think I’ll take a look around the rest of the place,” Gandalf announces, and the approaching dwarf soon takes his place at the Bagginses’ side.

“Would you like the beams to be rabbeted in the entrance hall?” the dwarf asks.

Bungo blinks. “Would I like them to be what?”

“Rabbeted. We can’t tell from the plans.”

Bungo glances at Belladonna, who doesn’t appear to have any more of a grasp on the question than him. He concludes that rabbeted beams were not part of her adventures. “Er,” he begins, determined to sound like he knows what he’s talking about, although that’s probably not the best start. “Well,” he continues, “I suppose…” He studies the dwarf’s expectant face. “No?”

“As you wish.” The dwarf shrugs, turns towards the entrance hall and shouts, “Rip them out, lads!”

All at once it’s as if the entire ceiling is collapsing as the dwarves remove the already-installed beams and toss them onto the floor with a tremendous noise.

“It sounded simpler to say no!” Bungo explains to his wife over the clamor.

They scurry to the doorway, close enough to see the destruction but far enough that no wayward beams will knock them out.

“I beg your pardon,” Bungo attempts. The dwarves, who are perched on scaffolding, ignore him. “Would you stop that, please?” he asks, raising his voice. “Excuse me!”

All the dwarves stop working. Bungo raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Thank you,” he says with a nod, confidently hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his waistcoat.

But then the dwarves begin clambering down and making their way to the front door, which at this point is only a simple, unpainted circle of wood. A few of them scoot past Bungo from other parts of the house. Out they go, one by one, dropping their tools on the way.

Bungo is flummoxed — not an unusual state for him, you’ve probably noticed. “Wait just a moment, please. I didn’t mean it like that. Just for you to stop taking the ceiling apart. I expect you to keep working, of course.”

A dwarf with a salt-and-pepper beard turns to him. “It’s meal time, Master Hobbit. We’re off to the inn.”

“Oh, I see.” So it wasn’t his authoritative voice that prompted them to stop working, but rather the promise of ale and meat. His stomach rumbles. He wouldn’t mind some himself, come to think of it.

When the last dwarf has departed, the silence is almost uncomfortable. It doesn’t last for long, however. A distant, rhythmic pounding can be heard coming from somewhere in the house.

“What could that be?” Belladonna wonders, following the sound. Bungo hurries after her.

“Perhaps someone’s working through luncheon,” Bungo suggests.

The sound draws them into what will eventually be the study. From there they venture into the adjoining bedroom, the sound getting louder and louder along the way. They’re confused to find the room empty. That is, until they realize the sound is coming from inside the crudely constructed wardrobe. It’s the largest one in the house, upon Bungo’s request, big enough to dress in, with knobs on both sides of the door.

Bungo and Belladonna exchange an uncertain glance. What could be making such a noise? And what would be lurking in their wardrobe in the first place? Could a wild animal have wandered in? That’s when he notices the smoke drifting through the open slats in the unfinished walls and decides with no small amount of anxiety that a fire must have started.

Before he can decide on the proper course of action, Belladonna reaches for the knob. Bungo opens his mouth to protest, but he’s quickly rendered speechless by what they discover on the other side of the door.

“Gandalf!” Belladonna gasps. “What are you doing in there?”

The wizard is seated on a small barrel of pipe-weed — the dwarves’ mealtime stash, Bungo guesses. He’s smoking a pipe and pounding another barrel continuously against the floor like Togo trying to crack a particularly difficult nut. When he notices them there, he stops pounding, removes his pipe, and explains drily:

“I was exploring the wardrobe when a very ill-timed draft blew the door shut. I was locked in.”

“Impossible,” Bungo counters. “I had this wardrobe built especially for myself. The lock opens from the inside.”

“Well, I certainly didn’t _choose_ to spend the last ten minutes trapped in here.”

“There’s nothing to it,” Bungo insists, suspicious that Gandalf is trying to make him look foolish. “Watch,” he says, entering the wardrobe with Gandalf and closing the door behind him. He turns the knob, and it opens effortlessly. Bungo grins. “See? Just takes some good old Shire know-how.”

“It’s possible, darling, that the lock works for you and not for Gandalf,” Belladonna points out.

“Ridiculous. Even you could do it.”

Belladonna raises an eyebrow. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Bungo rushes to clarify. “I’ll show you. Come inside.” He urges his wife into the wardrobe with him. It’s dim, with only a few strips of light streaming in between the slats.

Bungo instructs Belladonna to open the door. She tries the knob. Nothing. She tries it again. No luck. She turns around and shakes her head. “I don’t seem to be able to…”

“Nonsense!” Bungo moves past her and takes the knob in his hand. “You just turn the knob to the right.” He does exactly that, but the door refuses to cooperate. He tries it again. Nothing. He tries it again and again and again, but it won’t budge. And now he’s trapped in a wardrobe with his wife and a wizard, with all the dwarves gone for luncheon.

“Nothing like that good old Shire know-how,” Gandalf remarks from behind him.

Bungo shoots him an annoyed look. “Well, you’re the wizard. Can’t you zap us out of here?”

“If I could, do you not think I would be standing on the other side of that door right now?”

“Hmm. There really is very little consistency to those powers of yours, I’ve noticed,” Bungo retorts.

Gandalf harrumphs. “My staff is in the entrance hall. I hardly saw use for it while crouching through the skeleton of a hobbit-hole in the middle of the afternoon.”

“It would appear you were wrong.”

“Yes, well at least I can admit it when I am, Bungo Baggins,” Gandalf snaps.

“It would be very helpful if one of us could imagine a way out of here,” Belladonna mediates.

“Yes, of course, dear.” Bungo clears his throat. He’s determined to be the one to fix this. It’s his house, after all. Well, the beginnings of his house.

Just to be certain, he tries the knob again. It doesn’t budge. He sighs and looks around. That’s when he spots the barrel Gandalf had been using to get their attention. He moves to lift it but hesitates. Perhaps they should just wait for the dwarves to return and let them out. Surely they won’t be too long. Except they might not even pay heed to their cries for help, if his experience earlier this afternoon is any indication. And besides that, he doesn’t think he can stand to spend another minute cooped up in here. He lifts the barrel.

“What are you doing?” Belladonna and Gandalf ask in unison.

“If we can’t use the knob, I’ll just have to force it. It shouldn’t do too much damage to the door.” He honestly has no idea if that’s true, but if he says it out loud maybe luck will be on his side. “Belladonna, you stand over there.”

He takes a deep breath, grips the compact-yet-heavy barrel in both hands, swings it backwards, and rams it into the door. Or at least that's what he would have done, had the door been there when the barrel reached it. As is, he’s currently lying facedown beneath the door frame, the barrel having rolled out of his grasp and across the room, to be stopped by a steel-toed boot.

Bungo looks up. A dozen dwarves are staring down at him, including the one with the three-pronged beard who just opened the door at the most inopportune — or opportune, depending on how you look at it — moment. Every other second, their presence comes with a barrage of pounding tools, heavy boots and hearty laughs. Yet the one instance they choose to be quiet results in Bungo lying in a heap of embarrassment on the floor.

“We, uh, forgot our pipe-weed,” the dwarf with his hand on the knob explains.

Bungo nods weakly. “Yes, of course. Right over there.” He gestures to the barrel. The dwarf who stopped it with his boot bends down to lift it, giving Bungo an uncertain smile.

The dwarf by the door offers Bungo a solid hand and helps him to his feet. “Thank you very much,” Bungo says. “And thank you for getting us out of there, I should add. The lock needs some fiddling with, it would seem.”

“We’ll see to it.” After another moment of awkward silence, the dwarves turn and make their way out of the room again. He sighs to hear a few of them sniggering, though he can hardly blame them.

“Bungo, did you hurt yourself?” Belladonna hurries out to examine him.

“No, I’m fine.” Unless you count the injury to his pride. “I suppose I should be glad there was no damage to the door.”

“Thank goodness for pipe-weed,” Belladonna chuckles.

“Speaking of which,” he says, reaching into his jacket for his pipe, “I need a smoke.” He always needs one these days.

“Perhaps you should do it in the smoking-room,” Gandalf suggests, ducking to escape the wardrobe and failing to hide his amusement at the proceedings.

And so he enjoys his pipe in the smoking-room. At least, he thinks he’s in the smoking-room. Or is it the pantry? It couldn’t possibly be the wine cellar, could it?

* * *

“Gandalf is driving me up to The Hill this afternoon to meet with a gardener.”

Bungo looks up from the stack of envelopes he’s been sifting through during breakfast. He’s just finished reading a very cross letter from his father demanding to know why he hasn’t visited the family during his several widely talked-about trips up to Hobbiton the past few weeks. There were a number of disapproving remarks about “those dwarves” and “that wizard” and other things “entirely unrespectable.” It went on like that for several pages, after which Bungo had set the letter aside and swallowed a particularly enormous forkful of potatoes, thankful that old Mungo refuses to step foot in Tuckborough.

He swallows and stares at his wife across the table. “What do you mean Gandalf’s driving you?”

“Why do you always say ‘what do you mean’ when you know perfectly well what I mean and what _you_ mean?”

“I _mean_ the moment I turn my back, Gandalf the Grey is driving you somewhere.”

“He’s only trying to be helpful, dear.”

“I thought he was a wizard. Why isn’t he off wizarding or something?”

“Bicker, bicker, bicker,” Donnamira sighs as she spoons porridge into her mouth without glancing up from the book she’s reading.

“A little bickering now and then never hurt anyone,” Belladonna argues. “I would hate to agree with everyone all the time. How boring.”

“Boredom,” Bungo says fondly as he opens another envelope, this one containing a birthday party invitation. “I do miss it terribly.”

Belladonna is about to reply when her sister cuts her off with the only question she seems capable of asking these days: “Do you really have to go live in that house?” She’s been moping about it non-stop since she found out, sulking in the garden and observing Togo in his cage with a distant look in her eyes. “First you went off with Gandalf with no promise of when you’d return, and when you got back all you ever wanted to do was see Bungo.” He blushes to hear it. “And then when you got married…”

“I took you with me,” Belladonna interrupts.

“But now you won’t,” Mirabella whines.

“We’ll still see each other constantly, I promise you.” Bungo cringes at that. “And I have a sneaking suspicion that when Gandalf offers _you_ an adventure, you’ll be singing quite a different tune.”

Mirabella’s face lights up. “Why? Has he said something?”

Belladonna gives her youngest sister a pointed look over the rim of her teacup.

Mirabella sighs. “Oh, very well.”

Bungo opens the final letter in the pile. It’s from their landlord. That’s unusual. He’s sure they paid the rent this month, and he’d told the fellow just last week that they were in the midst of building a new residence, so he certainly can’t complain like Mungo about being uninformed.

The message is long and teeming with polite language and formal phrasing, but all Bungo sees are the following phrases:

_NEW TENANTS… EVACUATE THE PREMISES WITHIN THE WEEK… THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING._

“Belladonna…”

His wife is currently involved in a lively discussion of Sindarin’s past tense with Donnamira, so she doesn’t hear his frail bid for her attention.

“Belladonna.”

Still no response.

“Belladonna!”

She turns her head with raised eyebrows. “Yes?”

“We’re moving in a week.”

“A week? But Bag End isn’t even…”

“Finished. Quite right.”

Well, this should be quite the adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I’ve edited chapter 3 to reflect that Belladonna and Bungo’s current home is rented, not owned, as was originally implied.  
> Thanks for reading! I’m on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com).


	10. Round Windows

_"Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."  
_

The week before their move into an unfinished Bag End passes far more quickly than Bungo would like, and he can’t even check on the progress of the construction because he’s too busy making preparations. Dishes and books and clothing and various other odds and ends must be packed away to ensure the transition goes as smoothly as possible.

For Bungo this is second-nature. But unfortunately orderliness is not next to Tookishness. Belladonna and her sisters have made quite the mess of things. Clothing has been packed with no regard for item or owner, and instead of being folded or rolled, most of the articles have just been balled up or tossed haphazardly into the packages. The silverware is in the same crate as the hairbrushes, Bungo notices with no small degree of disgust. Vases haven’t been properly wrapped, and most of them are still damp and housing faded flower petals.

Bungo takes a deep breath before entering the kitchen, where the ladies are packing up the pots and pans in a frankly horrifying manner. The lids are entirely mismatched, and he thinks he saw Mirabella place a single teacup inside a frying pan. He must stop this immediately.

“Belladonna.” Bungo approaches his wife, who is in the middle of stacking plates and saucers of alternating sizes. “Perhaps your sisters could focus on packing their own things? It will be going to the Great Smials, after all. We don’t want to get things mixed up.”

He speaks quietly, but not quietly enough, it would seem.

“Couldn’t we stay with you in Bag End?” Donnamira suggests. “At least until things are finished?”

“Yes, yes! Oh, please,” Mirabella begs.

“Well, I suppose that depends on how Bungo feels about it,” Belladonna explains to them, turning to her husband.

Bungo gulps, at a loss for how to respond. He looks at Belladonna, thinking maybe the right answer will be waiting for him there, but her face is unreadable. Either that or he’s simply unable to read it. He’s spent an entire year imagining a life where it’s just the two of them, but he cannot bring himself to tell his sisters-in-law — indeed his family — that they’re unwelcome. He would hate to send them packing earlier than they expected. Earlier than Belladonna expected as well. And yes, earlier than he expected. The chattering and the clanging and the close quarters make his head spin, but whether he likes it or not it’s become his home. And leaving home, especially so suddenly, doesn’t come easily for Bagginses, no matter how many wardrobes await.

“I suppose that would be fine,” he says plainly, and as soon as the words are out of his mouth the two of them are squealing and clapping and practically dancing with delight. “But I’ll still ask you to please pack your own things,” he adds. “We can drop most of it off at the Great Smials before we leave. Only the essentials for Bag End.”

They sigh and nod and hurry off to their bedroom to do as asked. When Bungo glances back at Belladonna she’s giving him an adoring smile.

“That was very good of you,” she remarks.

Bungo shrugs and examines his feet. “What’s another fortnight? We’ll have years and years just the two of us.”

“Not too many, I hope,” she points out.

“Hmm?” He glances up. His gaze is swallowed by the warmth in her eyes, and then he understands. “Oh yes, of course.”

She steps closer, props his chin up on her index finger, and presses a kiss to his nose. “Now that we’re alone…” she murmurs after pulling away only an inch or so. Bungo's eyes widen. “Why don’t you teach me the proper way to stack these dishes?” she finishes with a smirk.

Bungo lets out his breath. “I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

And so they move. Their belongings fill three rented carts, two of them with rented drivers, since Bungo knows from personal experience that a Took-driven cart is rarely a safe one. One cart contains clothing and smaller items, the other two stacks of furniture secured with rope. And then of course there’s Gandalf’s generously donated cart, the whole of which is inhabited by the disassembled pieces of the Bagginses’ four poster bed, a wedding gift from Bungo’s parents, who had wrongly assumed their first bedroom could comfortably accommodate it. Bag End has more than enough room for it, Bungo has made certain.

He stares at the pile of carved wood fondly from his place on the seat of the cart behind it. Donnamira and Mirabella insisted on riding with Gandalf, no doubt looking to be the next candidate for an adventure. Bungo hardly minds, as it means he and Belladonna have some time to themselves. Much of it is spent by Belladonna complimenting the gardener she’d hired with Gandalf’s advice last week, a fellow named Holman (“They call him ‘greenhanded,’” Belladonna informs him with delight) who’d promised to start planting straight away with the help of his apprentice son so the place would look presentable for their arrival.

He’d also done wonders to the grass, Bungo notices as they pull up to The Hill. The overgrown parts have been trimmed back to a lovely length, and new sod has been placed in patches that previously had been brown and dry. It looks excellent against the brick the dwarves have placed around the door and the windows. Windows…

“Where are the windows?” Bungo asks no one in particular as he steps off the cart.

“They’re right there in the side of The Hill,” Belladonna tells him.

“Where is the glass?” he clarifies. “A window is only a window if it has glass. Otherwise it’s just a hole.”

Bungo had made a frantic visit to The Hill upon learning of his eviction, and the dwarves had assured him that Bag End would be livable in a week’s time, with only a few small details left to be added. Apparently dwarves consider windows to be small details.

The construction team is smaller now, with several of the dwarves having already returned to Bree. Bungo approaches one of the remaining workers, an aged-looking dwarf with a bald head who’s currently examining a piece of parchment on the front steps.

“Pardon me, but will you be putting the window panes in soon?” Bungo asks he watches his armchair float past him into the house. The hobbits who drove their belongings there have already begun moving them in.

“That’s just what I’ve been trying to figure out, Master Hobbit. There seems to have been some confusion,” the bald dwarf explains.

“What kind of confusion? I ordered those panes from a glassmaker in Bywater weeks ago. Surely they’ve been delivered.”

“Well, yes, there were panes delivered, Master Hobbit. Just this morning, in fact. Only they don’t fit.”

“They made them the wrong size?”

“No, they’re the right size. Just not for your house.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You see, these windows seem to belong to another hobbit, a Mr. Boggins in Michel Delving.”

Bungo takes a few seconds to process this. “Mr. Boggins?”

“Yes.”

“Then where are _my_ windows?”

“We’re not entirely sure yet, but we’ve decided they’ve most likely been delivered to this Boggins fellow. It seems to make the most sense.”

“Nothing about this house makes sense,” Bungo mutters before asking more loudly, “Well then, how soon can you get them?”

“It should only be a day or two.”

“And until then, what? We just live in a house without windows?”

“Yes, exactly.” The dwarf nods with a smile and wanders off. They really have to stop doing that.

Bungo considers his surroundings. Furniture and packages are still moving past him. Belladonna and Gandalf are admiring the beginnings of the garden. Donnamira and Mirabella are splashing each other with water from the pump. He takes a deep breath and marvels at the fact that it’s almost done, that where a few months ago there was only a hopeless-looking hill, there is now a house. The dwarves did that, and as difficult as he finds them at times, he’s grateful to them. Making it a home, however, is his job. His and one other’s.

“Belladonna!” he calls towards the garden. She makes her way over to him with a smile. “Are you ready?” he asks, a nervous quiver in his voice.

She laces their fingers together. “Always.”

They walk through the door hand-in-hand.

* * *

Midsummer is a very unfortunate time of year to go to bed in a house without windows, as the Bagginses discover that night. Bungo counts four midge bites on his legs before he snatches every spare bedsheet he can find to cover the holes. He does the same around the four-poster bed, which took most of the day to put back together. Bungo insisted it should be their top priority — after windows, of course, but much to his frustration that was beyond his control.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t bring along your sisters’ beds,” Bungo tells Belladonna as they climb under the covers. Donnamira and Mirabella are spending the night on piles of pillows and quilts on the floor of a spare bedroom. “There was so little room on the carts, and since they’re not staying for very long…”

“Don’t be ridiculous, they adore sleeping in strange places. When we were fauntlings the three of us would spend the night in the flower beds on starry nights. They told me tonight they feel like elves.” Belladonna rests her head on the pillow next to him, on the left side of the bed like usual, and they lie facing each other by the light of a single candle on the bedside table.

“Ah, well perhaps Bunny Foxburr should redo their rooms in the Great Smials,” Bungo remarks.

Belladonna laughs. “Perhaps he should. As for me, I much prefer this.” She tugs gently at the front of his night shirt.

Bungo hesitates. “Do you? I won’t wake up tomorrow to find you nestled in the flower beds?”

“None of that, now,” she scolds, tapping her husband’s nose. “Will you ever stop thinking you’re holding me captive? Even if you were — which you most certainly aren’t — don’t give yourself so much credit. Believe you me, Bungo Baggins, I would have escaped by now.”

Bungo can’t help but smile at that. “I know you would.”

They talk for a little while longer, mostly about the house, and how well everything turned out, missing windows notwithstanding. There are still plenty of finishing touches to be added, of course. Many rooms are still without tile floors, and the shelves in the pantry aren’t done. There is furniture to be bought and wardrobes to be filled with new clothes, and the garden isn’t even close to where they want it to be. They’d like a fence with a gate and a bench out front, and of course there’s still the new row of smials to consider. Bungo has decided to call it Bagshot Row.

When the pauses in their conversation grow fatter, Bungo blows out the candle.

“What color should we paint the door?” Belladonna asks softly, eyes closed and nearing sleep.

“Hmm. I hadn’t thought about that.” Bungo’s head feels heavier and heavier on his pillow with each passing second.

Neither of them speaks for a few moments. The only sound in the room is their quiet breathing and the chirping of crickets outside — probably inside as well, Bungo guesses. It’s strange for things to be so quiet. He expects to hear his sisters-in-law giggling in the next room, or at the very least Togo cracking a nut. They brought the bird with them — Mirabella couldn’t bear to be parted from him — but the noise doesn’t carry in this place. Bag End is big, bigger than Bungo could have ever dreamed. But as he gazes at his wife's face just barely illuminated in the moonlight sneaking through the thin makeshift curtain, he thinks that even a house without windows, without doors or fireplaces or armchairs or even wardrobes, could still be a home as long as Belladonna’s there.

Just before they both drift off completely, Belladonna whispers, “Green.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com).


	11. Painted Green

_“Bless me, life used to be quite inter—I mean, you used to upset things badly in these parts once upon a time.”_

Early the next morning, in the dim light just before dawn, the Bagginses are woken by the sound of heavy boots and tools. The dwarves are nothing if not efficient, but Bungo was rather hoping to enjoy his first morning in Bag End by waking up at a more leisurely pace. Instead, he shoots up in bed, disoriented and bleary-eyed.

“Whassat?” he croaks. As his vision clears, he takes in the room and for a terrified moment wonders where he is. It’s only after he glances to the other side of the bed and sees Belladonna turning her face into the pillow with a groan that he realizes.

Bungo decides he won’t get any more sleep with dwarves milling about outside his door, so he pulls the covers away and pads over to the nearby jug and basin to splash some water on his face before fetching his dressing gown. He makes sure to leave the door open when he enters the wardrobe. The dwarves promised him they fixed the lock, but he’d rather not risk becoming trapped again — especially not before he’s eaten breakfast.

Bungo slips into the hall and finds the dwarves already hard at work putting the finishing touches on the place. He nods and politely _good morning_ s them as he passes into the kitchen to put the kettle on. That’s where he runs into the bald dwarf from the day before, who’s busy with the tile in the corner of the floor.

“Good morning!” Bungo greets, pulling two teacups from an unpacked crate on the table. “Have you got those windows for me today?”

The dwarf stands and brushes off his trousers. “I’m afraid not, Master Hobbit.”

Bungo nearly drops the kettle on the hearth. With all the civility he can muster, he asks, “What do you mean?”

“You see, we paid a visit to this Mr. Boggins fellow yesterday afternoon, but it turns out he hasn’t got your windows after all. He’s got windows for a Mr. Beggins in Frogmorton. So then we inquired after the glassmaker, and he told us your windows are either with this Beggins fellow or with another hobbit by the name of Buggins in Nobottle.”

Bungo’s knuckles are white where he grips the cups’ handles. “How long?”

“Shouldn’t be more than a day or two. Don’t worry, Master Hobbit, we’ll get you those windows in a jiffy.” After a wink and a nod, the dwarf returns to work, and Bungo returns to fretting.

He sips his tea in bed and wakes Belladonna with the nervous clattering of his cup on the saucer. She sits up, rubs her eyes, and gently removes the saucer from his hand, placing it on the bedside table. Then she lifts her own teacup from where he’s left it for her and snuggles against him as she takes her first sip. After a quiet moment, she asks, “It’s the windows, isn’t it?”

Bungo can only sigh.

* * *

Breakfast is meager. They share what they can with the dwarves, along with a pot of steaming coffee, but unfortunately Bungo entrusted the first days’ shopping to his sisters-in-law, which means their pantry is currently stocked with mostly fruit, sweets and flower bouquets. “Flowers are not food,” he’d muttered under his breath as they searched for vases.

Belladonna decides to correct this later in the morning by tying on her bonnet and heading out the door with their biggest basket over her arm. On the way out, she runs into Mr. Loamsdown, the local hobbit they’ve hired to paint the front door. Bungo leaves the parlor, where he’s been organizing his books, to stand by his wife’s side as the painter tips his cloth hat to them.

“Good morning,” he says with a smile. “Quite the place you’ve built for yourselves here. Nice to see The Hill finally fixed up, and by a Baggins no less.”

Bungo bursts with so much pride he fears his waistcoat will pop open. “Thank you very much for saying so."

“I can’t wait to see how it looks when that pile of dirt is cleared away,” Loamsdown adds pleasantly.

Bungo grits his teeth and forces a nod, eager to change the subject. “You’re here to talk paint, I presume?”

“I certainly am. What color are you thinking?”

Bungo looks to Belladonna, who’s beaming. “I’d like it to be a green,” she declares.

“Very well. Sounds lovely,” Loamsdown says. “I’ll just fetch my things, and…”

“Emerald green,” Belladonna interrupts. “But slightly brighter than that. Not as blue green as turquoise, but not as yellow green as pear. And certainly not as dark as moss. But also not as light as tea either. Here, I’ll show you.” She turns to the pegs on the wall of the entrance hall and removes one of her favorite shawls. Loamsdown shoots Bungo an alarmed look. Bungo returns an apologetic one.

Belladonna spins back around brandishing the shawl. “Here we are. Now, this one is a little too yellow, so be mindful of that, but don’t go too far in the other direction and make it too blue. This is more of a lime. I’d like something closer to a cucumber. A freshly picked cucumber, of course. Don’t go looking at any pickles,” she says with a wink, and Loamsdown laughs as genuinely as he can. “Just a bold, cheerful green,” she finishes. “Is that clear?”

Loamsdown stares at her for a moment, mouth agape. “Eh…” he begins, before finally straightening up and managing to look at least slightly less befuddled. “Yes. Of course. Very good.”

“Wonderful. Now if you’ll excuse me, I was just on my way out.” And with that she scoots past Loamsdown and out the door.

When she’s down the steps and out of earshot, Bungo turns to the painter. “Have you got that?”

The fellow opens and closes his mouth a few times before responding hesitantly, “Er… green?”

“Perfect,” Bungo assures him with an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

He’d long ago learned not to be bothered by his wife’s particularity about color. As long as it’s in the general vicinity of what she’s asked for, she’ll be perfectly happy. Of course, he realized this _after_ spending three hours searching the market for a spool of thread “somewhere between cornflower and sapphire, not too purple but not too green either.”

Loamsdown breathes a sigh of relief at Bungo’s response and leaves to retrieve his supplies. Bungo returns to the parlor, where Donnamira and Mirabella are sitting on the floor hunched over something that appears to be of great interest to them.

“What have you got there?” he asks, picking up another book to shelve.

“Belladonna’s glory box,” Mirabella responds.

His stops short. Even _he_ hasn’t seen what Belladonna keeps in there. “Ladies, respect your sister’s privacy,” he cautions, well aware they won’t listen — and privately curious about what they’ll find.

“She won’t mind,” says Donnamira. “Oh, look at this! What a lovely pipe. I wonder why Belladonna never uses it.”

“What’s that symbol on it, there? How peculiar.”

“That’s Uncle Gandalf’s symbol! I’ve seen it before on his fireworks. He must have given this to her. She took up smoking when she was away with him, you know.”

She did?

Donnamira places the pipe’s stem between her lips and gives her best Gandalf impression, much to Mirabella’s delight.

“Put it back,” Bungo warns.

They ignore him and look deeper into the box. There are various odds and ends both domestic and eccentric, from doilies to brooches to what looks like a volume of Elvish poetry. Donnamira places an enormous brown feather behind her ear. Mirabella gets her hands on a small leather-bound diary, its pages yellowed and mud-splattered. She flips through it and gasps.

“What is it?”

“Belladonna’s diary! From her adventures. Oh, how exciting.”

“That’s none of your business!” Bungo insists. It feels like Togo is inside his ribcage, and his heart is the nut.

He’s ignored again as Mirabella flips through several more pages, her sister peering over her shoulder. “So many of these entries are about Uncle Gandalf. This one is all about his beard. She goes on for two entire pages. She’s very complimentary.”

“And very desperate to touch it,” Donnamira notices. “Oh no, she couldn’t have been… Belladonna and Uncle Gandalf?” They burst into giggles.

“Close that this instant,” Bungo demands, hurrying over and grabbing the diary from Mirabella’s hand. “You can’t just go around reading other people’s diaries. It’s disrespectful. Go set the dishes out for elevenses, please.”

They do as they’re told, grumbling the entire way to the kitchen. When they’re out of sight, Bungo glances down at the diary in his hand. He rubs his thumb over the embossed “BT” in the bottom right corner of the cover and bites his bottom lip.

He can’t. He shouldn’t. He won’t.

He places the diary back in the box and goes back to his books.

He fills an entire shelf alphabetically before his gaze returns to the box.

He takes a single step towards it, then shakes his head and turns back around. He does this two more times before finally giving in and retrieving the diary. Then he hears his sisters-in-law laughing about something in the kitchen and immediately drops it. When he’s sure they’re not looking, he carefully picks it up again and creeps down the hall to the study, nodding with as much nonchalance as possible to the dwarf worker he passes.

Once inside with the door closed, he paces back and forth for a few moments, running a hand through his hair. He looks down at the diary, slipping a finger between the front cover and the first page.

Oh, sticklebats.

* * *

“The door looks wonderful. Exactly the green I was thinking.”

“Mm. That’s good.”

They’re seated in the parlor after dinner, Bungo with a book lying unread in his lap, Belladonna resewing a button onto one of her bodices.

“Bungo, is something the matter? You’ve barely said a word all evening.”

“Hmm? Oh, I just… don’t feel like talking, I guess.”

Belladonna raises an eyebrow. “Is it the windows that are bothering you?”

“No, not the windows. Well, yes. But… no.”

“Then is it that ham business?”

“Hmm?”

“The ham, dear. The one you’re supposed to write a slogan for.”

Blasted ham. “Oh, of course. No, that’s not it.” Well, now that’s partially it.

“Well, you’re upset about something,” she decides. “I can always tell.” She ties off her thread, sets the clothing aside and stands up. She leans over him, bracing herself with a hand on each arm of his chair, and looks him in the eye. “What is it?”

Bungo gulps. If he doesn’t say it she’ll never let up, and neither will his stomach, which is currently tying and untying itself with increasing speed. “Why do you have a pipe with Gandalf’s name on it?”

Belladonna blinks. “What on earth are you talking about?”

His mouth is dry, and the next words come out cracked: “Your sisters found it today in your glory box.” He swallows. “Why do you have it? And why were you hiding it from me?”

She straightens up, looks down at him with narrowed eyes. “What were they doing going through my things? Didn’t you tell them to stop?”

“Well, yes, but you know they don’t listen. And anyway, you’re not answering me. What are you doing with that pipe?”

She shrugs. “Gandalf gave it to me years ago. It’s just a memento.”

“A memento of _what_?”

Belladonna’s mouth falls open. “Honestly. You’re not still jealous of that old wizard, are you?”

“How can I not be, when I keep discovering so many reasons?”

“You’re making up reasons where there aren’t any.”

Bungo rises from his chair to face her. “If he gave you such nice pipes and took you on such magnificent adventures, why didn’t you marry _him_?”

Belladonna appears genuinely speechless for a moment before answering with amazement, “Because he’s _Gandalf_!” She then adds, in a quieter voice, “And I wasn’t in love with him.”

“That’s not what you said in your diary!” Oh, now you’ve put your foot in it, Baggins.

Belladonna doesn’t say anything at first. Her eyes widen for a second, and then she’s retreating into her chair. “So now you’ve been reading my diary.” It’s not a question expecting a confirmation, but rather like she’s testing out the sentence on her tongue to come to terms with a notion as strange as her husband invading her privacy.

Bungo shifts on his feet. “Well, the girls were reading from it, and I happened to overhear… and then it happened to be there… and well, it just happened.”

“I’ll just bet!” she snaps. He doesn’t think she’s ever snapped at him before, and he doesn’t want to get used to it. “How much did you read?” she asks in a flatter tone.

“Enough,” he answers. He’d only read a handful of scattered pages before guilt got the better of him. That didn’t stop the abundance of the wizard’s name in his wife’s curvy hand from plaguing his mind for the rest of the day. “It’s all over the book, Belladonna. His beard and his pipe smell and his fireworks and the wonderful jokes he tells. Why won’t you admit it? You were in love with Gandalf the Grey.”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. It was a childish infatuation. Back then I was in love with someone or something new every week. I would have married mountains if I could.”

“Then why did you marry _me_?”

She stands again, and when their eyes meet, her gaze is fierce. “I’m beginning to wonder. Maybe it’s that impossibly round nose of yours, or the way you stammer when you’re nervous. Maybe it’s because the only time you’ll take off your waistcoat is when you’re going to bed. Maybe I knew you were going to drag me up to this unfinished hole in the ground with no windows and a heaping pile of dirt outside. Or maybe, just maybe, I happened to fall in love with you. But for goodness’ sake, don’t ask me _why_!”

By the time Bungo fully absorbs his wife’s words, she’s disappeared from the room. Then his thoughts catch up to him, and they’re very uncomfortable.

Why did he ever have to read that diary? Why did he make such a fuss over a silly old pipe? How could he ignore the fact that Belladonna never smokes out of anything but the pipe _he_ gave her on their wedding day? Why must he be so jealous, of everything from Gandalf to his sisters-in-law to even flower beds on starry nights? Why can’t he just accept that somehow, for reasons he still can’t quite grasp, he earned the love of the most remarkable hobbit in the Shire? That instead of continuing to chase adventure with a wandering wizard, she chased him instead? That she spent a year cooped up in a hatbox with him and only ever had a smile on her face? That she held his hand so tightly and walked so proudly with him into a house with no windows?

That she could have had mountains, but she chose him?

After a few moments of uncertain pacing around the parlor, he goes searching and finds his wife at the kitchen table tucking into a bowl of raspberries with cream.

“Belladonna,” he begins, stepping tentatively over the threshold. “Would it do any good to say I’m sorry?”

She licks the excess cream from her spoon and sets it down without looking up at him. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I am.” He hovers on the opposite side of the table, running his fingers along the edge. “I behaved like a tween, and I’m sorry.”

She glances up then, and her eyes are soft. The corners of her mouth quirk as she stands and walks around to the side of the table. “Come here,” she says, opening up her arms. It takes him only a single step to reach her and bury his face in the crook of her neck. She squeezes him closer.

“You’re right that Gandalf took me on some exciting adventures,” Belladonna murmurs, and Bungo tenses. “But do you know what my favorite adventure of all has been?”

Bungo pulls back to look at her. “What?”

She smiles. “This one.”

He furrows his brow, so she elaborates:

“Building this house. This _home_. With you.” She emphasizes that last point with a kiss to his nose, and Bungo is so overwhelmed by the sudden warmth in his chest that as soon as she pulls away he steals a kiss of his own — a proper one this time.

Then suddenly it’s as if a dam has been broken and let loose a flood, as he plants a kiss to every part of Belladonna’s face that his lips can reach. He’s just made it to the corner of her eye when she laughs and says, “Why don’t you take a breath?”

“Why do I love you so much?” he asks, words muffled against her cheek.

“Oh, let’s stop it with the _why_ s, or we’ll start this whole thing over again.”

Bungo hums an affirmative against the skin just below her ear, and she jumps, giggling, saying it tickles. So he does it again. He’s so focused on this that he almost doesn’t hear the clatter near the window as their makeshift curtain descends onto the sill, knocking over a vase of flowers.

 _Almost_ being the operative word in that sentence.

The Bagginses jump in near perfect unison, breaking apart to stare through the round hole at the town beyond, lit by both lanterns and moonlight and looking every bit the peaceful place that Posco Overhill made it out to be — probably the only thing he was honest about.

“It really is an excellent view,” Bungo remarks, and Belladonna laughs again.

He’s far too busy pursuing more of that laughter to even bother cleaning up the mess. His father would be appalled. But thankfully — for many reasons — old Mungo isn’t here right now, and he has a wife who needs kissing.

Once his calf starts to itch with a fresh midge bite, however, the sheet goes back up. A Baggins can only endure so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more chapter with these crazy kids. Thanks for reading!


	12. Nasty, Dirty, Wet

_“…and there they remained to the end of their days.”_

Bungo joins his sisters-in-law on their journey back to the Great Smials, since there happens to be a certain fellow with a certain ham in Tuckborough whom he owes an apology. The girls are still very reluctant to leave Bag End and are quite vocal with their complaints. They even ask to stay for a few more weeks, much to Bungo’s dismay. He searches desperately for the best way to put his foot down, but thankfully Belladonna does it for him.

“Be brave for me,” she tells them with a kiss to each of their foreheads. “Tell everyone I said hello. We’ll see each other very soon, I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”

So they sniffle and nod and climb onto the cart, Togo making a racket in his cage on Mirabella’s lap. “Togo’s going to like it at the Great Smials, I just know it,” Bungo assures them as he takes the reins. It’s mostly to remind himself that yes, he’ll soon be rid of that confounded thrush once and for all.

The rest of the ride is quiet, and Bungo would be relieved if he weren’t so sure it was because of the girls’ disappointment. He attempts to fill the silence with small talk: “I think it might rain later. Good thing Holman put that sod down on the dirt pile. I just hope he did it soon enough.”

Dirt and sod and approaching rain apparently aren’t preferred topics of conversation for his sisters-in-law, who reply with hardly a grunt of acknowledgement. He decides to just keep his mouth shut.

When they reach the Great Smials, Bungo lends them both a hand stepping down. “Well, I suppose this is goodbye,” he says. He can’t quite figure out how to continue.

He doesn’t have to think on it for very long, for all at once there’s a pair of arms wrapped around his neck, and another pair straining to join them. “Oh!” he says out of surprise, but once he’s caught up to what’s happening he hugs back, arms uncertain.

“We’ll miss you,” Mirabella says before they both pull away, and Bungo’s breath halts in his throat. Oh. _Oh._

Somehow he’d never actually considered that his sisters-in-law were sad about leaving _him_ as well as his wife. He’d never thought they liked him very much. And to tell the truth, he wasn’t sure he liked _them_ , having a tendency to define their existence by the loudness of their voices and the length of their bathroom visits. But now, seeing their wet eyes and feeling a chill against his chest where a second ago it was warm, on the verge of his four-person household (five if you count Togo) becoming a two-person one, he sees everything in a new light.

In all his fantasies about starting a family, he’d totally missed the one he had right in front of him. What a pity to realize it so late.

He smiles at them then, weakly, unable to cough up even a single word.

They collect their things and unlatch the front gate. Just before they step onto the path leading through the sprawling garden beyond, Bungo blurts out, “Just a moment!”

They turn, eyebrows raised.

He clears his throat. “You are welcome at Bag End any time. Belladonna would be thrilled to have you.” A pause. “And so would I.”

Their eyes suddenly look like they’ve been lit from within. He finds himself at the center of another hug, even tighter this time. Then they’re sprinting off down the garden path, dark curls bouncing against their shoulders. He can see their smiles without even looking at their faces.

No one needs to know about the tear that slides down his face as he drives away.

* * *

Bungo expects one of two reactions from Olo Danderfluff when he tells him he hasn’t come up with a slogan — anger or disappointment. He’ll either hurl a leg of lamb at Bungo’s head or sulk over his sausages. Bungo is betting on the latter reaction, since he really can’t imagine the amiable Danderfluff getting his dander up, as amused as he is by the wordplay. Besides that, Olo would never waste an ounce of product, especially not for throwing at someone’s head.

He thinks he’ll be able to break the news to him, apologize by buying half his inventory, and return to Bag End having shaken this ham business out of his hair once and for all. He feels guilty, of course, for allowing his worries about the house to distract him, but at least he’ll no longer be living in Tuckborough and regularly crossing paths with the fellow he wronged.

What Bungo doesn’t expect from Olo is calm understanding, but that’s what he gets. The round hobbit is nothing but pleasant when he arrives. “Mr. Bungo! So good to see you!”

If Olo hadn’t used his name Bungo would be convinced the butcher was talking to someone else in the vicinity. “H-hello, Olo. Good to see you, too.”

“I heard you’ve built a house for yourself up in Hobbiton.”

Bungo blinks. Perhaps Olo has forgotten about the slogan. But how could he have when that’s the entire reason they know each other in the first place? Regardless, Bungo can’t help but feel relieved over finding Olo in such a good mood. “Yes, we’re just putting the finishing touches on it.”

“How very exciting! It must have been a lot of work.”

“It certainly has.” He pauses, wondering whether he should even mention the slogan. But then what would he say his reason is for paying a visit? Certainly he hasn’t traveled all the way from Hobbiton to stock up on meat. He might as well take advantage of Olo’s agreeableness. “In fact, that’s the reason I haven’t been back with that slogan of yours,” he proceeds carefully. “I’ve been rather distracted, and that’s certainly no excuse, but I thought I owed you an explanation.”

Olo lets out a dramatic sigh. “Oh, thank goodness. I was starting to worry that I’d have to bring it up myself, and I’d really hate to press you, Mr. Bungo, knowing how busy you are.”

“Of course,” Bungo replies. “That’s why I came all the way down here, after all.”

“I certainly do appreciate it, Mr. Bungo.”

Bungo is unsure how to continue. “Well, I’m terribly sorry to have wasted your time. I’d love to buy some of your fine products before I leave.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll get you whatever you’d like. But first let’s hear that slogan.” Olo is practically bouncing on his heels like an excited fauntling at Yuletide.

Bungo gulps. Apparently he didn’t make himself as clear as he thought he did. “Oh. I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding, Olo.”

“A misunderstanding?”

“Yes. You see, I haven’t actually come up with a slogan.”

“You haven’t?” He’s never seen Olo look so deflated. Not physically, of course; he’s still plump as ever. But his mouth has fallen into a deep frown, which really doesn’t suit his face.

Bungo scrambles for a way to fix this. “What I mean is that…” _Think quickly, Baggins._ “I was thinking we could work on the slogan together.”

“Together?”

“Of course. Since it’s your product, and I have to get your approval after all, why not spend a little time thinking on it together, getting each other’s opinions and such?” He can’t believe what he’s saying.

Olo’s face brightens. “That’s a splendid idea. In fact, I was just about to close up shop for the evening and head home for dinner. Why don’t you join me? My family would be honored to have you.”

“Oh, well, I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Nonsense!” Olo declares. “I insist.”

He really does insist, unyieldingly, all the way to his kitchen table, where Bungo sits poking at an overloaded plate while two chubby-cheeked hobbit children — a boy and a girl so close in age he can’t tell which one is older — stare at him.

The rain he predicted earlier has arrived, beating against the windows as the hovering clouds make for an early dusk. For a moment he’s terrified that his own windows still haven’t been installed, before remembering they finally arrived the previous afternoon — after a few more assurances of “one or two days” from the dwarves, of course.

His thoughts are so loud against the sound of the relentless rain that it takes Olo’s wife three tries to get his attention: “I said do you have any children of your own?” Her hair is sandy blonde, the opposite of Belladonna’s, and somehow that makes him think of her more.

“Not yet,” he replies, attempting to seem as present as possible even though his mind is under The Hill. Belladonna must be worried. And during the first rainy night in Bag End, at that. For a month he’s been looking forward to it: a big blazing fire, Belladonna pouring coffee, him in his new smoking jacket, with his pipe and a book in his lap. He knows it’s his fault, that he should have already written a slogan. And now he must pay for it. Things could be worse than eating a pleasant dinner with a pleasant family, after all, but he’d rather that pleasant family be his own.

“Thank you for the lovely dinner, Mrs. Danderfluff,” he says now. “Olo, I wonder if we could get cracking on that slogan? I don’t want to stay too late.”

“Of course, Mr. Bungo.” Olo slides his chair back. “But we’d be happy to let you stay the night if it comes to it. Certainly wouldn’t want you to venture out into this deluge.”

Bungo has never been so desperate for rain to stop. As long as it continues pouring, Olo has an excuse to keep him, and his Baggins caution stops him from braving the storm. He’d like to return home alive and in one piece without having fallen off a bridge or toppled over in his cart, thank you very much.

The men sit in the parlor with parchment and quill, while Mrs. Danderfluff brings them tea. It’s all so very hospitable, and Bungo feels a pang of remorse over how trapped he feels.

“Compare the price! Compare the slice! Take our advice! Buy Hamfast!” It’s the first thing that pops into his head. Olo wrinkles his nose.

“Maybe,” he says. “But let’s get a few more ideas on the page before we make a final decision.”

Bungo sips his tea and glances out the window. Still raining.

And it’s still raining three hours and several ideas later, as Bungo sits slumped in his chair and croaks out, “Each slice is better than the last. Take our advice, buy Hamfast!”

“Hmm, that sounds familiar,” Olo says, still chipper as ever despite the candles burning lower and lower and the rain striking louder and louder against the glass. “Isn’t that something like what you wrote for Mrs. Burrows’ pies? ‘Each bite’s so good you could cry. Take our advice, buy Burrows’ pies.’”

Bungo was hoping Olo wouldn’t notice. “Right you are,” he sighs, reaching into his pocket for his pipe.

Three more hours pass, and Bungo becomes desperate. He lifts a crinkled sheet from the pile resting on his belly and reads out, with as much enthusiasm as he can muster, “This little piggy went to market. The townspeople grinned as he passed. He smiled in his tracks when they slipped him the ax. He knew he’d turn out to be Hamfast!”

“Horrified” is a word not strong enough to describe the look on Olo’s face.

Very well, that one was rather gruesome, he’ll admit. But he can’t be blamed for losing his touch — if he even had one to begin with — when it’s after midnight and he’s trapped in a strange house during a rainstorm with no way to contact his wife. It’s getting to him, and he doesn’t think his civility will last much longer. In fact, it only lasts a few more seconds. Olo suggests they sleep on it and get back to work in the morning, and suddenly Bungo feels a burst of energy and springs from his seat, waistcoat askew and fingers covered in ink and papercuts.

“That’s it, I can’t do this.” Olo gapes up at him, but he soldiers on: “All I’ve got on my mind is a house that’s just barely finished and might be washing away as we speak, and a wife who’s all alone right now and probably desperate to know where I am and if I’m all right. I’m sorry, Olo, truly, but I simply can’t stay any longer. Use whatever slogan you like. You don’t even have to pay me for it. Just please let me go home.”

Olo sits staring at him for a moment before moving his gaze to the window. Then all at once he’s standing with a warm smile and patting Bungo on the shoulder. “Looks like the rain’s finally let up, but be careful out there.”

Bungo opens his mouth intending to argue further before he realizes what’s happening. “Well, thank you very much, Olo. And once again, I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.”

“Not at all, Mr. Bungo. Tell you what, why don’t you take another ham home with you, to reacquaint yourself with it? If you come up with something, let me know. If not, I’ve got pages of ideas from tonight. I’m sure I can make one of them work.” He scurries into the kitchen and returns with a wrapped ham, pressing it into Bungo’s arms.

“You’re far too kind for the way I’ve treated you,” Bungo admits.

“Don’t go putting yourself down, Mr. Bungo,” Olo scolds, pushing him towards the door. “You had every reason to be distracted. Go make some good memories in that place.”

Bungo shakes the jolly butcher’s hand. “Thank you, Olo.”

“Papa?” a small voice asks from behind them. Olo’s son, curls a mess, has left his bed and is rubbing his eyes in the entrance hall.

“Grigory, you should be sleeping.” Olo hurries over and urges his son back to his bedroom.

“Are you going home, Mister?” the sleepy fauntling asks over his shoulder.

Bungo looks towards him, and it suddenly hits him just how small this house is. Smaller even than his old hatbox. Olo will probably live here to the end of his days. And yet he’s the happiest hobbit Bungo has ever met, with his wife and children and precious ham. Because those are the things that matter, not the size of his wardrobes or whether or not he has a wine cellar, lucky as Bungo is to have the privilege of considering those things. And he really is lucky, isn’t he?

Bungo’s mind flashes to black hair and a welcoming embrace behind a bright green door, and he answers both the boy’s question and his own in the same breath: “Yes, I am.”

* * *

It’s dawn when Bungo arrives at Bag End, his eyelids fluttering and his head bobbing forward every so often. He’s so relieved to find The Hill in one piece that he pays no notice to the size of the cart parked outside the front gate. If he had, he might have been more prepared for what he soon discovers inside.

He opens the front door and is greeted by the sound of Belladonna’s voice. She isn’t talking to him, but rather _about_ him, worry lacing her voice. “He must have found a place to stay for the night. He would never drive in weather like that. But I just wish I knew for certain.”

Bungo slips into the parlor, where Belladonna stands facing away from him, speaking to Holman, the gardener, a fellow just past middle age with a kind face and rolled-up sleeves. Holman notices Bungo’s arrival before Belladonna does, looking past her and smiling. She follows his gaze, and he barely has time to take in her relieved grin before she’s wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him. Bungo tries not to let the fact that there’s a ham between them ruin the moment.

“I didn’t sleep at all,” she tells him, and over her shoulder Bungo spots Holman sneaking out of the room with an amused nod.

“Well, that makes two of us,” he replies, returning his attention to his wife, who’s currently taking the ham from his hands and placing it on the table by the window. “Olo wouldn’t let me catch a wink before we came up with a slogan.”

“Oh, so you ended up giving him one after all?” She grabs his half-unbuttoned waistcoat, and instead of buttoning it up again, undoes the rest.

Bungo shakes his head. “Nothing was good enough. I wish I could have come up with something. He was terribly understanding.”

“You’ll find it,” Belladonna assures him before hugging him close. “What a dreadful night. I’m so glad you’re home.”

“So am I.” And he really is, for that perfect moment enfolded in her arms. He thinks he could fall asleep right then and there, and is just about to suggest they share a nap before second breakfast, but then Holman reenters the room and the morning takes a turn.

“I’m sorry to bother you after such a long night,” he begins tentatively, and they pry themselves apart to look at him, “but there’s a rather large hole in the back garden, and I wondered if you knew anything about it.”

“A hole?” the two of them ask in unison.

“Yes. And I’m afraid, considering last night’s weather, it’s a bit of a mess. It’s right in front of the flower sink.”

“The flower sink,” Bungo repeats, looking to his wife with narrowed eyes. He thinks back to their meeting with Minto to go over the floorplan and distinctly remembers the flower sink being Belladonna’s passionate idea. “Do you know what this is about?”

“Of course not. Why would I know anything? All I did was —” There’s a flicker of recognition on her face. “Unless…”

Bungo crosses his arms, lack of sleep’s close friend irritability making itself known. “What have you done?”

“It was nothing,” she insists.

“What have you done?” he repeats.

She sighs. “Very well, I’ll tell you, but it really was nothing. One day I saw four little pieces of flagstone that were left over from the porch, and nobody was going to do anything with them. So I asked Mali if he would —”

“Who is Mali?”

“One of the dwarves.”

“Oh.” To be honest, he could never keep track of their names and mostly recognized them by the length of their beards and the color of their hair. “You asked him to do what?”

“I asked him if he would just use the flagstones to give us a little floor in front of the sink, where it might get wet. That’s all I did. And he was just as nice as he could be and agreed to it, and that was that.”

Bungo ponders this for a moment. “Did you ask for a drain?”

“Of course I didn’t. Just four little flagstones. That’s all.”

“Well, apparently that wasn’t all, if there’s a hole in our garden!” He’s already dealt with missing windows and defective locks and stone broken through with fireworks, and he hasn’t slept all night or even had breakfast. The last thing he needs is a nasty, dirty, wet hole in his back garden.

Just then, as if being summoned by Bungo’s frustration, the dwarf with the forked beard clomps through the front door and into the parlor.

“Oh, Mali!” Belladonna exclaims. “What excellent timing. I was just telling Bungo about the stone floor in front of the sink. Well, except it seems it’s not so much a floor as it is a hole. Do you know what happened?”

“Couldn’t finish it,” Mali answers. He scans the room as if searching for something.

“What do you mean?” Bungo cuts in. That seems to be a common question when dealing with dwarves.

“The last of us are leaving for Bree now, Master Hobbit. I just stopped in to retrieve my hammer. Ah, there it is!” He grabs it off the mantelpiece.

“Whether you finished or not,” Bungo asks, willing his civility to remain intact, “why did you have to dig a hole?”

“Well, because of the pipes,” Mali says as if it’s as plain as the nose on his face.

“The pipes?”

“Yes. The pipes under the ground there had to be rerouted, because the stone was so heavy we didn’t want the plumbing to be crushed. So we dug the hole and changed the pipes, but we had no time to fill it or lay the stone down. We’ve been on a tight schedule.” Yes, so they’ve said before.

While Mali continues to explain his intricate process for defiling their garden, Bungo notices someone enter the room. Someone large. And grey. And _bearded_. Someone who has to stoop to get through the doorway. “Good morning,” the new arrival greets.

Bungo turns his head and instinctively replies, “Good morning, Gandalf.”

And then it hits him harder than flagstone.

His jaw hangs open when he sees the wizard’s state — robes missing, only a shirt and braces with his billowy grey trousers. He looks astonishingly unwizardly. Bungo would probably laugh at him if it weren’t for the disturbing implications.

Bungo looks from the wizard to his wife, then back to the wizard and to his wife again. She notices his distress and offers a nonchalant explanation: “The bridge was closed because of the rain, so Gandalf had to stay here last night.”

“Slept like a rock,” Gandalf says with a smile.

Mali is still talking away about the process of rerouting water pipes, and all the while poor Holman is standing in the corner looking like he wishes he never told them about the hole — or more likely that he never accepted the job in the first place.

Bungo blinks a few times, just to make sure he didn’t fall asleep while driving home and start dreaming all of this. Unfortunately it seems to really be happening. All he can say is, “I just went over the bridge to get here.”

“Well, it was closed last night,” Belladonna replies, still focusing most of her attention on Mali and his convoluted construction report.

“It’s open now!” Bungo announces, his voice getting involuntarily louder. Mali stops talking, and suddenly Bungo feels all the eyes in the room settle on him. His own eyes never leave Belladonna, whose reciprocal gaze is unapologetic.

Gandalf takes the hint. “Good news about the bridge. I should be on my way, then. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go retrieve my things.”

 _Those things had better be your clothes_ , Bungo thinks.

“I really must be going, too,” Mali says. “Apologies about the stone. It was a pleasure building your home.” He bows to them.

Belladonna looks away from Bungo long enough to acknowledge the dwarf. “Thank you very much, Mali. You’ve done a wonderful job. And tell the same to your fellow dwarves.”

Once Mali has left, Holman steps forward nervously. “I can fill the hole and put the flagstone down myself. It won’t be any trouble at all.”

“Thank you, Holman,” Bungo says flatly, still staring at his wife, who’s staring back again. “You’re very helpful.”

The gardener lingers for a moment, indecisive, then scurries out of the room, leaving Belladonna and Bungo by themselves, their eye contact practically magnetized.

“Darling, you’re upset,” Belladonna attempts, and her tone is careful. “You haven’t slept. You’ve got a lot of things on your mind.”

“Oh, there’s only one thing on my mind,” Bungo retorts. “This house, and how soon we can get rid of it.”

“That’s not what you’re thinking,” Belladonna tells him.

“Maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m thinking I was once a happy hobbit. I didn’t have a walk-in wardrobe. I didn’t have a smoking room. But I did have my sanity, a garden with no holes, and a wife I could trust.”

“That’s a fine thing to say!” Belladonna gasps.

“This house has been one long nightmare from the start.”

“You love this house,” she objects.

“I hate this house, from its rabbeted beams to its cucumber green door.”

“You know you don’t mean that.” Belladonna appears utterly shocked. It’s an unusual look on her.

“Every word of it,” Bungo persists, pacing the room now, looking wild with his unbuttoned waistcoat and his wind-blown hair from the ride home. “Anybody who builds a house themselves is crazy. You start out to make a home and you wind up turning your life upside down. And what about the hobbits without Took money? Or even Baggins money? They end up like poor Posco Overhill, forced to sell what they haven’t finished so their children can eat.” He realizes mid-sentence that Posco Overhill was a filthy liar and part of the reason he got into this mess, but it works for his argument so he refrains from correcting himself. “You said this was an adventure? Well, for goodness’ sake, don’t adventures ever have an end?”

He isn’t sure what’s brought this on. Maybe it’s exhaustion. Maybe it’s failing to come up with an acceptable slogan. Maybe it’s that blasted hole in the garden. Maybe it’s Gandalf staying the night. Maybe it’s all of these things and more. All he knows for certain is that he built this house to solve his problems, not cause more of them. It seems all those warm late-night thoughts about how lucky he is have been drowned by the morning dew.

Before Belladonna can respond to her husband’s tirade, there’s a knock on the front door. “Who is it?” Bungo barks.

There’s a pause, and then the door creaks open slowly. In steps a visibly anxious and familiar-looking hobbit in a cloth hat. He shifts on his feet in the entrance hall.

“Mr. Baggins?” the visitor squeaks. “It’s Loamsdown. The painter? There’s just a small matter of payment for your door.”

Bungo’s jaw is tense and his brow knitted. He sucks in a sharp breath. “Payment, you say? Well, why don’t you just take everything I’ve got?” He reaches into his pocket for his wallet and empties its contents onto the table. “Maybe you’d like to take my new smoking jacket while you’re at it. Or what about this ham? Go ahead and take the new glass out of the windows, why don’t you? Help yourself, Mr. Loamsdown! It’s open house!”

“No, no, Mr. Baggins,” Loamsdown protests frantically. “You don’t owe _me_ payment. I owe _you_.”

Bungo stares at him, struggling to filter those words into a coherent idea. “What was that?”

“I overcharged you for the work on the door. Here.” He holds out a coin. Bungo gapes at it for a second as if it isn’t real, and then he slowly reaches for it. He runs his thumb across the surface experimentally.

Finally, after months of feeling like this house has done nothing but take things from him — his peace of mind, his money, his marital bliss — it has given him something back. He knows in his heart that it’s given him much more than that, and later he’ll feel very foolish for ignoring it all, but right now it’s all funneled into this single piece of metal, a comfortable, tangible weight in his palm.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Loamsdown,” Belladonna says when it’s clear Bungo has been rendered speechless.

“Certainly. Sorry for the confusion.” The painter tips his hat and moves clumsily back to the door. “You sure have got a pretty place here. Take good care of it.” And with that he slips out of the house. Through the window, Bungo can see him rushing off down the lane as if he’s just seen a ghost.

Bungo and Belladonna share a glance, and just as he’s about to speak, Gandalf stoops in. He’s put his robes back on and is holding his hat and staff.

“If anyone’s interested, I’m leaving,” he informs them, adding wryly, “If you want to count the silverware, I’ll wait.”

“Be patient with me, Gandalf,” Bungo sighs, rubbing his tired eyes. “Maybe one of these days I’ll actually come of age.”

“What happened to him?” Gandalf asks Belladonna.

“This,” she replies, holding up her husband’s hand, which still clasps Loamsdown’s coin.

Gandalf doesn’t appear to have any idea what she means by that, but he laughs anyway. “Do you mind if I say something? Ever since this business started, I’ve been the voice of doom. Every step of the way I was convinced that you were out of your depth. And maybe you were. Maybe there were times you wished you’d never started the whole thing. But when I look around at what you two have done here…” He considers his surroundings. “Well, I don’t know. Perhaps there really are some things you should do with your heart and not your head. Perhaps those are the things that really count.”

All the Bagginses can do in response is smile up at him.

The wizard shakes Bungo’s hand firmly and begins bending down to kiss Belladonna’s cheek, but — whether because of the strain on his back or Bungo’s dagger-sharp stare — he thinks the better of it and offers another handshake instead. Then he takes one final look at them, mutters “Hobbits,” and turns for the door.

He promptly hits his head on the parlor door frame.

“I’ll have to get used to that,” he tells them, rubbing his skull. Bungo takes absolutely no joy from it whatsoever. Why would you even suggest that?

When Gandalf has finally made it out of the house free of any more injuries, Bungo turns to his wife, the coin getting warm in his hand and regret settling in his chest.

“Belladonna, I’m so —”

He’s cut off by a very loud rumbling in his stomach.

Belladonna laughs and steps closer to him. “Hungry?” she offers to complete his sentence before kissing his nose.

“Very,” he chuckles, and looks to the ham on the table.

They call Holman into the house and eat in the kitchen. The dining room feels far too big at the moment, and in any case they’ll have plenty of opportunities to use it later — years and years’ worth, Bungo thinks, taking Belladonna’s hand under the table.

Holman praises the ham, humming around his fork with each bite. Bungo tells him about Olo, and the gardener vows to make a trip to Tuckborough as soon as possible to buy one himself. “From now on,” he declares, “if I’m not eating Hamfast, I’m not eating breakfast.”

Bungo’s jaw stops working mid-chew. He forces his food down and tells Holman, “Say that again.”

“What’s that?” Holman glances up from his plate, oblivious.

“Say that again. What you just said. About the ham.”

Holman squints, trying to remember. “Oh. I said, if I’m not eating Hamfast, I’m not eating breakfast.” He huffs a laugh and continues eating.

Bungo stands up, chair legs scratching against the tile, silverware dropping out of his grasp and onto the table with a clatter, napkin falling from his collar to the floor.

“Belladonna, give Holman a raise!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, it's done! Thanks to everyone who's read and shared. It's been an adventure.
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com).


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